


To All Those Brave and Lovely

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix It Fic, Infinity War, PTSD, Peter Parker love story, Peter Parker romance, Romance, Tony gets a daughter, Tony gets to be a dad, girls kicking butt, peter's a sweetheart, some character death, there's like a minor assault halfway through so trigger warning for that, trigger warnings for assualt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-15 02:12:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 53
Words: 109,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13603404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: Nora Reynolds didn't ask anyone to save her.And yet, Tony Stark seems to be intent on doing so anyways, becoming her legal guardian after her father dies in the middle of a terrorist attack (a death caused by one of Spiderman's mistakes) and taking her to live with him in the middle of New York.  Her new life reminds her of the Cinderella story that she and her friend Eden used to dream about, but she had never pictured it happening like this- with the news calling her THE ONE WHO WALKED AWAY, and the nightmares, and the only person she can really talk to being Tony's dorky intern Peter, who she spends quite a lot of time with.Nora tries her best to navigate her new school and her new feelings for Peter, even with the continued mixed feelings she has toward Spiderman (guilt, blame, gratitutude) and the new group that seems intent on taking down the avengers, one member at a time, and doesn't mind taking her with them.





	1. Out of the Rubble

**Author's Note:**

> currently being transferred over from my Wattpad account, always_scripturient
> 
> everything you recognize belongs to Marvel

Nora Reynolds was the girl who walked away.

At least, that was what the news called her. They liked to give people names, and now Nora was one of those people, as they replayed the image of her crashing through that picture window with a little girl cradled in her arms, Spider-Man coming to the rescue just before she hits the ground. Its all they seem to want to talk about, even as the speculation keeps coming about what terrorist group sent the killer robots in the first place ( _like it matters which bully sent the first punch, it doesn't matter in the end who was responsible, it still hurts_ ) and the responses to another Avengers world rescue come pouring in. Nora watches it alone in her house on her grainy television, sees her own face played over the screen and Spider-Man leaving her alone on the pavement.

She's spent a lot of time alone since then. It got easier, especially after the funeral ( _her father lowered down into the ground beside her mother, everyone staring at her, cameras flashing because even if they couldn't get into the cemetery, it didn't matter, because the paparazzi's cameras could see that far, the realization setting in that she was really alone and there was no where for her to go_ ) to just sit in the living room through the night and watch bad tv, eating microwaveable food that had gotten freezer burn months ago, only going to sleep when the sun starts to climb the walls. Nora lets the phone ring and ring and doesn't answer it, until the time she does and finds a reporter on the other end and gets so angry that she rips the landline right out of the wall.

"You'll have to face it sometime," Eden tells her, when she climbs up the old trellis that shouldn't hold her weight and finds her on the roof. They used to spend a lot of time on the roof together, sneaking out of their respective households to dream and make solutions to their problems that would never come true. They'd talk about heroes, too, after the bad things started coming and the avengers fought them back and heroes became a fact of life rather than something out of a fairy tale. "They won't let you stay here forever."

Nora knows that they won't. She's not sure who they are, but they're men in suits and woman with expensive dresses and cheap shoes carrying clip boards and knocking on doors. She watches them from behind the window curtains, peeking out when they go into the house of her elderly neighbor that comes to check on her and brings her brownies. Her cousin told her they came to his house, too, asked if he was prepared to take on being her legal guardian. For once, she's glad that the county she lived in was a poor one, because it meant that the wheels turned slow everywhere, especially children's services, even when the child question was a topic of national interest. "I just want things to go back to how they were," She says, holding up her hands to trace the constellations, some of them real and some of them ones she and Eden had made up as kids. "Is that too much to ask?"

But it was, because she still has dirt coating her teeth and has dreams of metal monsters and has to check that the ground underneath her feet are still solid. Things couldn't go back to the way they were, because her father was dead, because he had walked up to that first robot and hit it over the back with a chair to give people enough time to run, and that robot had turned and looked at him like a little kid might look at a butterfly before ripping out its wings before sending him flying into the wall. They couldn't ever be normal, because she can't look out window without flinching and her back is still covered in angry red scars from the glass, and because now people that had never even met her are arguing what to do with her, treating her like a stray dog that needs to be passed around until they find someone who really wants it.

Wants her.

Nora isn't used to being wanted, but they come to her anyways, knocking on the door with sad and solemn faces, like there aren't at least twenty other kids in this town more in need of their help than she is. "You don't have a choice," They tell her, when she finally lets them in and they settle at the kitchen table. She knows one of them, the girl with the fake diamond earrings. The girl, Carly, had graduated high school the year Nora went into eighth grade, and now she was here, sliding a file across her desk. "There's no where else for you to go."

"And so I have to go here?" She raised up the papers, letting them fall from her hands and flutter back onto the table. Nora can see Eden outside the window, standing on the opposite sidewalk and staring in through the screen door. "To live with him?"

"It's not such a bad deal, Nora." Carly reached across the table, takes Nora's hand in her own. "It's better than here, you know? He's going to be able to give you everything you want."

"I don't want to stay with him." She looked down at the tower, at the name written across the top of the paperwork- _Tony Stark, billionaire, Iron Man, will take full responsibility for the afore mentioned minor._ "There were a lot of kids that had their lives ruined in that battle. Why is he choosing me?"

"Because you're the girl who walked away." The man at the door, who had been quiet until now, pushed up his sunglasses and handed her a trash bag, which she knew from some of the other kids in town that this is all she gets to move from one home to the next. "I guess that makes you mean something now."  
  
  
  
  
  


It doesn't mean anything. It just means that she knows what it's like to have the ground fall away beneath your feet, to have a building tilt and crack and crumble because someone made a mistake, a deadly mistake, because Spider-Man threw one of those metal robots into the bottom floor and he exploded. Because she leaves her father to die and grabs onto the girl next to her and held her tight to keep her from watching ( _people call her a hero from that, but when Nora admitted to Eden that she hadn't really even made a decision to do it, Eden told her that it's a biological instinct to save people younger than you_ ), because when she knew things were going from bad to worse she threw herself through a window and into a free fall, and Spider-Man, who had technically gotten all those people killed, had come to save her and the little one in her arms.

"I'm sorry," He had said when he set them down, and Nora thought that he might be crying, because his voice was too young and too strained and too something else, like he was being forced to do to much to soon. She can't answer him, because she's choking on the dust and debris and maybe on her own fear, and Spider-Man is still pulling her somewhere that must be safer than the middle of the street. Her hand stings, and in a few hours the paramedics will tell her its because she got a third degree burn from holding onto his webbing to keep from falling, but for now all she can do is stumble down an alleyway and dry heave until the fighting stops.

"I didn't mean to," He had told her after, when she had rejoined the other civilians and Hayden's been returned to her father and the Avengers had started roaming around the area. In other circumstances, she might have been excited. "I didn't mean to do that."

"I know what you meant to do," Nora had told him, because despite what she might have told the news crews later (then she spoke only the highest praise for the avengers), there was something nasty twisting in her stomach and she couldn't help that think that even if he saved the rest of the world, that building back there would always be on him. "But that doesn't matter, does it?"

And she had thought that that would be the end of it, that the world would forget about her and nothing would change, but now she was being driven to Stark tower by someone named Happy (who she wanted to hate but couldn't because he took her on her first private airplane ride and let her drink champagne even though she was too young) and didn't have a say in any of it. And of course her new home would be a tower, she thought, stepping into the elevator and watching the numbers light one by one, rising up, up, up. There's no Spider-Man to save her, but Nora digs her nails into her palms to remember that she doesn't need him, anyways, that the ground under her feet was still solid.

"You must be Nora." Tony tells her, when the doors open and she drags her trash bag of belongings out into the hallway. He looks smaller out the suit, like he's nervous about that too. Nora had wanted to make this difficult for him, or at least to prove to him that she didn't need his help, but she's too tired for that. "I'm Tony."  
  
  
  
  
  


She doesn't like it here.

She doesn't like it because the tower is tall, and the sight of all the windows make her scars sting like her skin is being sliced open all over again, and the only thing in her room other than the bed and the couch is her pitiful trash bag full of stuff. She doesn't like it because there was some man named Jarvis watching everything like some omnipotent alien presence, and no one gave her time to say good bye to Eden, and Tony didn't think to give her directions to anywhere else in the house so she has to wander around until she finds the kitchen and the bathroom.

"Look." Tony moved into her room, hesitating in the doorway and coming to a decision that probably felt something like _it's my house, damn it, I'll walk in if I want._ "I know this sucks. This sucks for everyone. And if there was anywhere else for you to go, I'd get you there, no matter what strings I had to pulls."

"There's no where." She hugs the pillow to her chest and stares out the window, refusing to look at them. "You and that Spider-Man kid made sure of that."

"He was just trying to-,"

His voice was tight and exhausted and defensive, and Nora felt like crying, which was strange because she normally doesn't do that, even during the whole "invasion of the killer robots" thing. "Save the world. I know. And I owe him for that, but he's still the reason my dad died." It's funny to say the words out loud and not here someone argue with her. She's surprised to find that Tony wasn't arguing with her. "Why'd you bring me here?"

Tony closed his eyes, and she could see the glow of the arc reactor through his shirt. Nora had followed his story the same as everyone else, back when she was six and his face filled the tv screen and then he came back as Iron Man. She had wanted so badly to get the chance to meet him. "We hurt a lot of people. I just wanted to help someone. And you seemed like a good choice."

"Because I was the girl who walked away?" Nora isn't sure why this is important to her, except that if the answer was yes she was fully prepared to tell him that he could stick that where the sun doesn't shine, even if he was a billionaire and an avenger and now responsible for her. "That's what the social worker said."

"No." The one word was enough for her to believe him, because it's a cross between annoyed and horrified, like he was both angry at the social worker and exasperated that she would even think to ask. "It was because you were trying to save that little girl. I thought someone should try and save you."

"I don't need saving." Her eyes are burning, and Nora was shocked to find that she had almost been awake for a full twenty four hours.

"I believe you." He placed a hand on her shoulder, warm and heavy and probably comforting if he would keep it there, but Nora flinched away from him. She was never one for casual touching, and wasn't about to start now. Tony nodded, like that answered a question she hadn't known he was asking, and stared around her room. "Where's all your stuff?"

She stared back at him. "I don't have anything."

Tony nodded, and she could tell from the look on his face that he was pleased to finally have something to do. "We'll get you some stuff." He stands up, and when he does the lights lower down to dim automatically, like someone had been waiting for a cue. Nora had an amusing image of Tony practicing this conversation with Jarvis before coming in to talk to her, and had to fight the urge to smile. "Get some sleep, okay?"

Nora doesn't really have any other option now, because she has no idea how to make the lights come back on, so she climbs into bed and tries to keep herself from feeling like she's falling.

And when she dreams, she dreams of metal monsters and open air, and Spider-Man with his outstretched hand saying _I'll save you,_ and when she wakes, the scar on the palm of her hand is burning, like the wound got ripped open all over again.


	2. Peter Parker

He wasn't kidding when he said that he would buy her stuff.

Pepper ( _who might be Tony's girlfriend or might juts be the CEO, but he's in love with her either way)_ picks her up one morning and takes her out shopping to buy more clothes and shoes and make up than she knows what to do with, and Nora didn't look at a price tag or head over to a clearance rack once the whole day.  She gets to decorate the room any way she wants to, so she buys picture frames and cheap art and more pillows than any girl should really have.  And sometimes, Tony looks over at her like he just got the best idea ever, which is how she got that new phone and new laptop and the stereo system built into the wall, not to mention her own car that she swore to never take out of the garage because it cost more than her old house.  "Do you need anything else?"  Tony asks her over dinner, like he does every night.  Nora wants to tell him that she didn't need any of this, that it was a new thing for her to know for sure that there was food in the fridge and that the lights were going to turn on when she walked in the door.  "You like legos?  I got an intern that likes to build lego sets, we could get you some of those."

He seems completely serious, and Nora has a feeling that she could ask for a pony and there would be a barn in the backyard the very next day.  "I like to read,"  She says, feeling awful for even asking for one more thing.  "Some books would be nice."

"Books."  He nods, like he never would have thought of that.  Nora's pretty sure he would have been more likely to buy her a 3D printer than a bookshelf.  "I can do that."

When she gets home from her shift at the coffee shop (because she still works, despite her new situation), the entire wall outside her room is lined with bookshelves.

 

 

"Why aren't you ever not here?"  Tony asks, staring at her.  She's curled up on the couch in his workshop, wrapped in a grease stained blanket and watching him with bleary eyes as he worked.  It's too late or too early, depending how you look at it, and Nora keeps drifting off to sleep.  The only time she can really manage is to fall asleep is when she's on the ground floor.  "You're fifteen.  Shouldn't you be at parties?"

"Sixteen."  Nora corrects him automatically, even though she's pretty sure he's just messing with her, considering he bought her a car.  "And how could I go to a party?  The only thing close to a friend I made was Wanda, and that was only for one night before she got sent back to your secret training compound."

Tony made a noise in the back of his throat.  He doesn't like to talk about the avengers, probably because it's still a new thing to have the team back together, considering some of them just lost their war criminal status thanks to the last world threatening attack.  Wanda had stayed over night, which was just long enough for both of them to figure out that her powers could make it so its like they were in the middle of a One Direction concert despite being in Nora's bedroom.  "You should go to bed, you know.  It's like, four in the morning."

"You're not asleep."  She doesn't know how to tell him that she can't, that everytime she closes her eyes she gets afraid that she's falling, how even looking out the window might set her into a panic attack some days.  Nora doesn't know how to tell him some nights she can still feel the burn on her palm and the cuts on her back and the dirt in her teeth, how she avoids mirrors in the morning just to pretend.  How if she doens't sleep here, with easy access to the noise and the light drawing her back, she likely won't sleep at all, and if she does, it'l be full of metal monsters and burning city's and Spidermans voice ringing in her ears.  

"I'm an adult."  He points a wrench at her.  "I've earned this."

"Don't make me leave,"  She says, because she'd seen him slump over his desk and then jerk awake often enough to know he understands.  "Please, Tony."

He doesn't, even if the line of his shoulders is tense when he turns back to work, but Nora counts it as a win and sags back into the couch.  She knows he wouldn't really kick her out, becuase over the weeks the couch has been replaced, and a bean bag added, and he keeps a second blanket in his one desk drawer to throw over her if he does decide to go to bed.  "You are getting a friend, though.  Peter Parker.  He's awesome."  He spins back around, and the welding starts up again, sparks flying.  "You're going to love him."

 

 

She did like Peter.

Nora hadn't been expecting too, because she had been thinking that she was about to meet someone way too mature for their age and wore suits all the time.  Instead, she got this boy who talked too fast and couldn't look her in the eye and hunched his shoulders like he wanted nothing mroe than to take up as little room as possible.  _Don't think of him as a babysitter,_ Tony had said, when she was first informed of this little pre arranged play date and was still arguing against it.  _T_ _hink of him as someone who's being forced by his boss to be your friend._

He was a good friend to have.  He taught her how to use the stereo, which was something she'd been too embarrassed to ask Tony for.  He plays Mario Kart without complaint and sucks at it, which gives her a chance to actually win.  And he doesn't make fun of her for liking crappy crime shows, which she had to turn on at 1 o'clock exactly, because the one at three A.M. last night ended on a cliffhanger and she wanted to watch the next one.  "Quite a view,"  He tells her during a commercial break.  Nora hadn't minded the silence, but Peter doesn't strike her as someone who was able to keep quiet for long.  Or keep still, if the constant fidgeting was anything to go by.  "You can see the whole city from here."

"I hate it."  She's surprised her own conviction, by the certianty in those three words.  Really, Nora had thought that it hadn't bothered her, but clearly there was some discontentment bubbling right below the surface.  "Whenever I look out it, I think I'm going to fall.  Reminds me of the..."

She trails off, because she doesn't have to say it.  It's why Peter didn't need to be introduced to her when he walked up that day, and why he doesn't ask her what she was talking about now.  Nora was famous for being the one who walked away.  "Have you told Mr. Stark?"  Peter is so concerned, so earnest, like he's truly worried for this girl that he just met today. But maybe he was.  He had given her a map of all the "streets to avoid," should she ever been in a situation where she had to come to Queens by herself.   When she doesn't answer, she adds, "Have you told anybody?"

"No."  She reaches out to touch the back of his phone, which was decorated in Avnegers stickers.  Her finger traced the outline of the spiderman.  "Could I tell you something, Peter?"

"Yeah."  His voice is quiet and a bit breathless.  "Anything."

"I really hate Spiderman."  It's like a weight off her shoulders to say it, to admit to the awful parts of herself.  This anger never used to be there.  Eden told her that it was like scar tissue layering over deep wounds, the minds natural defense against pain, and that if she would just let herself feel the pain for once, it would feel better in the long run.  "I know it's not fair.  And I know he was doing what he had to, and it was the best he could do in the moment, but.."

"But he killed your father."  

Peter's  voice is dull and heavy, and Nora wonders why before remembering that he lives with his aunt.  He knows what grief feels like.  "Does that make me awful?"

She's not sure why she's looking for absolution in Peter of all people, but she is, and he seems more than willing to give it.  "No,"  He murmurs, looking like it was ripping him to shreds to say it.  The show comes back on, and they both take it as an excuse to fall silent.  "Not at all."

 

 

Nora isn't hiding in the back of Ton'y workshop tonight.  Tonight she's going to a party at Peter's friend MJ's house.  _Not a party, party,_ Peter had told her while typing the adress into her phone, on the third time they hung out together.   _It's going to be three people.  But its our version of a party._

She'd never been to anyone's house beside Eden's, so she's a little nervous when she knocks on the door, and even more so when the girl who answered it doesn't even look up from her book to say hello.  "You know where to go, you loser, what are you waiting for."  And when Nora doesn't respond, feeling like she should really just turn around while she can, MJ finally does look up and seems to be appropriattely horriffied.  "I am _so_ sorry.  I thought you were Ned."  She throws the book down onto the floor by the shoes, right by four others.  "You must be Nora."

Nora blinks.  There's some people you meet in life who have personalities that just hit you with the force of a semi truck.  MJ was clearly one of them.  "Was that the Bell Jar?"

MJ blinks back at her.  "You've read the Bell Jar?"

"Who hasn't read the Bell Jar?"  It was like flipping a switch, like being asked the password and getting it right, doors swinging open right in front of her.  She's automatically in, and MJ babbles as she leads her into the basement to where the "party" would be set up, which was really just two bags of Doritos and three different movies.  Peter had warned her that it was MJ's turn to pick, so they'd either be about important moments in history or sappy romances.  By the time Peter and Ned get there, they're officially on their way to becoming friends.

There's not enough room on the couch, so Peter sits on the floor without complaining, his shoulder pressing up against her leg. Nora doesn't quite feel like she belongs here, yet, but there's not much opportunity for social blunders during a movie night, considering all they're doing is staring at a television screen in the dark.  Still, she finds herself watching her companions more than the movie- the way MJ leans forward during the exciting parts, how Ned keeps sneaking looks at his phone and then pretends not to, and Peter, Peter leaning over to whisper a joke to Ned that isn't really funny but makes them all laugh anyways, Peter wrapping his hand around her ankle to make her look at him, Peter making sure that Nora is okay.

It ends eventually.  Nora has to go home before the others do, but she doesn't feel the anxiety that she thought she would, the worry that as soon as she closes the door they would make a unanimous decision not to talk to her again.  They weren't the type of people to do that.  

"You had fun, right?"  Peter stood on the front porch while they wait for Happy, because even thought Tony didn't have much in the area of rules for her to follow, he had drawn the line at letting her take the subway all the way back home.  "I know we're not the most exciting group, but..."

He was looking at the ground instead of her.  Nora had noticed that he does that a lot, bouncing and fidgeting and avoiding, like life was coming at him with too many colors and sounds and noises for him to handle.  "It was amazing."  She leans in to give him a hug, and he freezes up on her, making her pull back soon enough to make it awkward.  "I had a lot of fun."

"Really?" 

Happy pulls up and beeps the horn impatiently.  "Really.  I did."  

She hugs him again before she leaves, because Nora is determined to make that a thing they do, and when she gets in the car and sees Happy watching her in the rearview mirror, Nora does the mature thing and puts her head phones in for the long ride home.

 

 

Tony still doesn't have rules, but they're starting to mesh together a little easier, like he's not walking on egg shells around her anymore and Nora isn't terrified that any wrong move will get her sent back home.  So it's easy for her to spend time with her new friends, or to have them over at her house and not be worrying that Tony might kick them out.  Truthfully, she's not even sure he notices that there are extra people in his house.  The Stark Tower is a revolving door for strays.

Nora spends a lot of time with her friends, actually.  She builds Lego sets, one of them always popping up in either Peter and Ned's room and often being sporadically worked on through the night when the four of them hang out together.  She sits by with the fire extinguisher and the decontamination unit ( _which is just a bucket of water and a squirt gun, but seeing as they're all sixteen, they can't do much better_ ) while the four of them do science experiments, talking about components and variables and other things that Nora doesn't understand, but that doesn't matter, because she's just there for moral support anyways.  Nora had been worried before that she was just there as an extension of Peter, but soon the invites start rolling in independently- Ned asking her to wait in line for a midnight release of a comic book because Peter ditched him and sending her tumblr posts that he knew would make her laugh, spending all day in book stores with MJ, and on one memorable day, spending six hours on the bus to go to a protest over a health care reform with her.

She's with Peter a lot, too. He's become a permanent fixture in her life and in the tower, which Tony had grumbled about but she's pretty sure didn't mind at all.  ( _Nora's learning the difference between real annoyance and fake annoyance, slowly._ )  He watches her crappy crime shows and does all her tech work and shows up to walk her home in exchange for free coffee if Nora happens to be working the night shift.  She watches his decathlon matches, despite his protests that _it's not the real deal, Nora, the only one worth going to is Nationals._ He's taken it upon himself to be her unofficial tour guide, showing her the bakery that gives you free cookies if you go in close enough to closing, the gas station that makes the best sandwiches ( _it got blown up in a fight last year,_ he tells her cheerfully), and the animal shelter that counts socializing with the puppies as community service.  

Nora still talks to Eden, too, sending letters that consist of scraps of ideas that they wanted to share but didn't remember during their phone calls and pictures of everything that they're missing about each other's life, talking late into the night on the phone, keeping up their incredibly impressive snap chat streak.  Eden says that Nora's dependence on her is unhealthy, that maybe she should just concentrate on her new life and new friends and cut Eden off just to make the transition easier, but Nora had quickly informed her that that was a load of bull shit.

She stumbles in through the door one night around four in the morning, so tired that she's actually slumping against the door for support and streaked with mud.  Tony is waiting for her when she walks in, and she thinks that this, right here, is when he finally puts his foot down.  "I think we need to talk," He says.  Nora might have been worried, except that he has sunglasses on his head and it's kind of hard to take someone seriously with that.  "I moved your room."

Turns out he had just gone in and lifted everything up with his Iron Man powers, flying them out the window and down to the ground floor, tucking her back into a room down the hall from him work shop.  She's close enough that she can hear the music and the racket melting through the walls, but its a comforting noise.  "I needed your old spot in case the avengers needed to come and stay,"  He tells her, flinging open the door to her new room.  It's smaller than the other one, but all her stuff fits, and there's no windows for her to fall out of.  "Hope you don't mind."

"Thanks Tony."  Nora chances giving him a hug, and even though he freezes and pushes her away after half a second, she counts it as a win.  She's not sure whether it was Peter or Jarvis who told him about her dislike of heights, but either way, she's grateful.  "I mean it."

 


	3. Kids

He's got a kid.

Two, if you count Peter, and somehow Tony can't stop himself from counting Peter, considering that he is sort of responsible for making him an official crime fighter rather than just a "saving a cute teenager from some muggers" kind of hero.  Originally the plan was to just have the suit in case an emergency rose up, and then Cap went all crazy and it sort of was an emergency, so he showed up at the kids house and told him to mostly just stay out the way and planned on giving him a hefty scholarship to MIT when it came time for Peter to worry about college.

Except the stupid kid had way too much fun fighting and was acting like fighting half the avengers team was a dream come true, and then he went back and basically single handedly saved the world even if no one knows it, despite that whole fiasco with the boat that Tony had to admit might have been avoided if he had actually talked to Peter more than once a month.  It had been a reasonable request, then, for Cap to ask Tony to bring Peter into the fight against the killer robots, even though actually seeing Peter flying around through the fight made Tony's stomach twist and his teeth ache.  

Tony had intended to stay away from him, because despite how responsible he might feel and how many hours he spent working on his suit, _Peter was not his to care about._ He had his Aunt May and his small handful of friends and his bright future, and Tony didn't want to get in the way of that, even if he couldn't stop himself from lurking in the back of the auditoriums during his decathlon matches and took him out to dinner once a month.  But then the city seemed to go quiet for just a moment, long enough for Tony to watch Peter fall to the ground with a robot on top of him and then fling it up, up and away and straight into a building full of civilians, and the two of them watched the whole thing start to collapse.  And then Peter was up, flinging himself into the air just in time to snatch those two girls away from the ground seconds before it got too late, and Tony didn't seem him again until the battle was over.

"It's okay,"  He told him, when he finds him down an empty alley with his mask off, bent over and dry heaving.  Tony puts his hand on Peter's shoulder, thankful that he had taken off the suit before he went to find him.  "It's over. We won."

"It's not okay."  The kids crying now, and he looks over at Tony with red eyes.  Tony had seen him cry before, right when the boat thing just happened and Tony had thought that taking the suit away was the right solution.  ( _Which, it was, he still stands by that, but it would have helped Peter with his task of not dying if he hadn't._ )  Back then, he ignored it because he didn't want to make his fatherly feelings for the kid even more complicated than they already were, but for now he has no choice but to deal with it.  "It's my fault they're dead."

"No."  Tony pulls Peter to him, holds him in the way that he imagines a father should hold his son when he gets upset.  And it must be right, because Peter's sort of clinging to him in a way that he's pretty sure neither of them are going to mention again.  "You didn't."  He keeps him there until he's calm, until the dust settles and the first responders have turned into the clean up crew, until Peter takes a shuddering breath and takes a step back and scrubs the tears off his face.  "I promise you it's not."

 

 

 

He had taken him back to the avengers complex that night, because there was no way that Peter was going to be able to go home, and Tony wasn't sure that being around Aunt May would improve how he was feeling.  He does let Peter call her, a long conversation that included a lot of very teenager like sighs and eye rolls, and maybe a bit more of crying, and then _yes, Aunt May, I just need to sleep._ And then Peter was sitting down at Tony's kitchen counter with Wanda, and Tony was cooking them pancakes of all things, because that was what Wanda had asked for.

(So maybe he has three kids, if you count Wanda, but since she turns toward Cap more than Tony, maybe she's more of a neice or god daughter or something.)

"The girl is okay."  She says, breaking up the heavy silence, and turns the tablet she's been messing with around to show Tony and Peter.  Nora, the headline says, the Girl Who Walked Away.  And there was also Hayden, the little girl she had tried to save despite never meeting her before today, her parents thanking both Nora and Spiderman over and over again.  "She just needed some stitches."

Peter nods, then swallows the bite of pancakes he was chewing like it took him a large amount of effort to do so.  "Her dad was in the building."  He shrugged, one shoulder going up, and Wanda reaches out to grab onto his hand.  Tony can see the faint light pulsing in her fingertips, and can tell that she was using her magic powers to calm him down.  That was a new thing, too, her finding out that she has a healing properties in her powers.  "And her mom died when she was little.  So she doesn't really have anything to go back to, does she?"  

He googled her.  Tony's sure that he should have seen that coming, but he didn't, and there was no way to cut Peter off from any and all acess to the internet, not when he's practically sitting in the tech capital of the world.  He's also sure that after he had gone back to get a shower like Tony told him to, Peter had sat on the bed and watched the footage that the news was still playing.  

"Hey.  Just worry about you, okay?"  Tony tapped him with the spatula, heart aching, because sitting in front of him was a boy that just learned that despite your best efforts, there is always going to be someone you can't save, and there will always be innocent people that have to be hurt in order to save the day.  It's a hard lesson to learn, and Tony had learned it when he was much older, after he had a long time to be young and selfish.  "I'll take care of her."

 

 

True, at the time he had been thinking that he was going to make an anonymous donation to her bank account, or maybe go visit her, or possibly tell her that he was going to pay for her college education.  That's normally what he does, when he says he's going to take care of things, because he's found that people like his money more than they like him.  But then the lawyers and the social workers and the entire world was telling him that this girl had no where to go, that this girl had no one who wanted her, that even though she tried her best to save Hayden, no one wanted to save her.  That she would be ripped from her home and put into the system and have any semblance of a safe home destroyed, after she had already had one very traumatic experience.

So he called in lawyers of his own.  And he signed some papers.  And he cleared out one wing of his tower for her to stay in and made it so she was enrolled for school in the fall, all under Pepper's gaze.  Tony had thought that she had looked at him with something like disapproval, but then when it all got finalized she had kissed him in a way she hasn't for a long time, and he didn't really know what she felt about it after that.  

"This is crazy."  Rhodey had told him, when he found out what he was doing.  "Even for you."

But Tony didn't care, even when he had another human to take care of and she was standing in his house, glaring at him.  Even when they spent one dinner just pushing food around their plates and not talking, because he was determined to be good, to help to scrub the blood from his hands and ease the weight of Peter's guilt.  "This isn't what I thought you meant,"  Peter said, looking at Nora through the glass wall.  They'd been hanging out a lot, which is another kind of mess, since he was Spiderman but Nora didn't know he was Spiderman, and Nora really liked Peter but really had some mixed feeling for the superhero.  

Tony hadn't thought it would be this complicated.

 

 

"Thank you,"  Nora tells him, again and again and again, and then something between them shifts and clicks and Tony stops correcting people when they say he's a dad, because even if he's not sure how Nora feels about the situation, he knows what he feels about it: like if anyone were to harm her, they would meet a very powerful blast from his Iron Man suit.

So he's a dad now, just like Pepper had told him he would never be able to be, cooking her dinner when he can and making sure that there's actual food in the fridge ( _which she doesn't ever eat, doesn't eat unless someone thinks to remind her, which he doesn't like but doesn't think its his place to say anything about_ ), having her stuff invade his space and teaching her how to work on cars, which she's actually really good at, going to check on her when Jarvis informs him that she's having yet another nightmare.  

"You're welcome,"  Tony says back, everytime, though he sort of wants to tell her that she doesn't have to say that to him anymore, because kids shouldn't have to feel like they owe someone just for making sure they're taken care of.

 


	4. high School

She's sort of famous now.

Which, maybe she was before, since Nora was THE GIRL WHO WALKED AWAY, was a certified HERO, and had been the one who GIRL THROWS HERSELF OUT BUILDING DURING TERRORIST ROBOT ATTACK.  It certainly gets you recognized, and that had gotten her a few second glances while she's walking down the street, not to mention a few people asking nosy questions and a few strange requests for autographs.

But now she's Tony Stark's daughter, and she goes with Pepper Potts (GIRLFRIEND OF BILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY TONY STARK, STARK INDUSTRIES CEO, OUT TO EAT WITH ADOPTED DAUGTHER) to brunch every Saturday just like Pepper had promised they would, and she's been spotted hanging out with members of the actual Avengers (WANDA SEEN HANGING WITH STARKS' NEW DAUGHTER, CAP TEACHES NORA REYNOLDS HOW TO DRIVE, WOULD TEENAGE DRAMA BE ENOUGH TO BRING THE HULK OUT).  

Nora has honest to god paparrazi follow her, and her face pops up on the covers of those trashy magazines you look at while in the grocery line.  Ned seems particularly amused by that, especially the time he got to take a picture of two magazines side by side, one saying that she was dating Peter and the other claiming that she was in love with MJ.  She's also getting invited to come along with Tony to most move premieres and concerts, most of which she politely turns down, except the invite to get backstage passes to the Halsey concert.

Eden drives in to go with her to that, and MJ and Wanda meet them there, and all four of them agree she should use her celebrity status more often if it gets her to do stuff like that.

"You're something special now,"  Eden tells her in the dark that night, her whisper barely audible even though they were only inches away.  They were sleeping in the same bed like they had when they were little and the heating in their houses was out, clinging to each other and buried under blankets just to stay warm.  "You found it, Nora."

"Found what?"  She doesn't want to talk about this, because then she might admit that she loves living here, loves her new friends almost as much as she loves Eden, and loves Tony more than she loved her dad.  And then the guilt might swallow her up, because she's grateful that she's here even though it meant leaving people she cared about behind, and she's only here beause her dad died.

"Your bigger and better.  Remember?"  She did remember, sitting on that roof and dreaming their impossible dreams, looking out at where the skyline met the earth and thinking that they would run away together, keep running until they reached that point where the two worlds came together.  Nora wonders why, if that was true, she still felt like running.

 

 

"I wish I went to your school."  It's something that's been bubbling up in her for a while now, as the summer draws to a close and school becomes a reality she can't quite escape, not with the piles of binders and notebooks and pens popping up in her room.  

"Why?"  Peter looks over at her from his spot on the curb.  It's become their place, because Peter swore that this shop was the best place to get sandwiches.  She remembered coming in here the first time and meeting the owner, who Peter was clearly friends with, and when the man called her a pretty girl, Peter carried on the rest of the conversation in fluent Italian, blushing furiously.  Tony had told her that Peter was smart and went to a school for other smart kids, but it had been the only time that she had seen an example of it.  "It sucks just as much as any other high school."

He had told her, in offhand comments that piled up to form a not so pretty picture, about what its like for him at school.  How no one had besides Ned and MJ actually believed that he had the internship, about this kid flash and how he really seemed to hate Peter for a reason no one could figure out.  About eating lunch alone and getting shoved around in the hallways.  It makes Nora want to punch someone.

"At least I know for sure I'd have friends there."  Nora hadn't wanted to talk to anyone else about it.  MJ would probably tell her something about not conforming to society, and Ned would tell her she was pretty enough to have at least one nerd decide to be her friend.  And all the other people she talks to are adults, and they would all say something around the lines of how amazing she was, and how it would be other people's loss if they didn't want to be her friend, and how she was worrying over nothing.  Tony might just go and buy her something expensive to take her mind off of it.  "I'm worried no one's going to like me."

Peter doesn't say any of those things, because Peter gets it, how even though there are a lot of kids sometimes there isn't space for one more.  "Even if you don't, you still have me and Ned and MJ.  And you can text me the whole day and tell me how much it sucks, okay?  Cause you do have friends."  She thinks about Eden and MJ and Ned, about how Peter goes out of his way to make sure she gets home safe.  Nora suspects that Tony put him up to that part, though, but its still nice that he does it without complaint.  "I'm sort of glad that you aren't, though.  Kind of like you thinking that I'm a cool guy."

He smiles sheepishly, and Nora bumps his shoulder with hers.  "That's because you are a cool guy.  And that Flash guy is just jealous that you're smarter than him."

He smiles, and she tucks that somewhere in the back of her mind, the idea that she's able to make him smile.  It's easier after that, to fight the nerves that keep bubbling up and go home without complaint, settling down into her room to read a book that MJ gave her and wait for Eden to call, trying to avoid looking at the school handbook sitting on her desk.

 

 

It doesn't suck as badly as she thought it would.  The day had started out a little rough, thanks to Tony greeting her in the kitchen with a special first day of school breakfast, which consisted of pancakes that had a smiley face drawn on them with whipped cream.  Nora's acting more like a teenager than she thought she had this whole summer, rolling her eyes and snapping at him, but Tony doesn't react, just tosses her the keys to a new car and telling her that she better get going.   "Don't worry, kid."  He grabs her in a one armed hug before she goes and presses a kiss to the top of her head.  It wasn't something she had thought of Tony ever doing, and was certainly never anything her real dad had done, but it echoed the easy way that Eden was around her father, something that Nora had always been unfairly jealous of.  "It's going to be fine."

Which it was, mostly, even though she was late to her first class because the school was a lot bigger than her old one ( _five whole floors_ ) and the office aid was extremely unhelpful.  She stumbled into chemistry without really looking at anyone, stumbling over an apology, but the teacher only smiled, partly because she was nice and partly becuase Nora was THE GIRL WHO WALKED AWAY.

"Come on."  Nora had scrambled to gather up her books when the bell rang, determined to find her class on the first try this time.  Except someone was standing in front of her desk, an annoyed expression on her face.  A really tall, very beautiful, red haired something.  "I'll help you find your next class.  I doubt you'll be much better at finding that."

"Are you sure?  I bet I could find it."  She can't.  There's no way she could find it and they both know it.

"No, you can't.  You're like this helpless little puppy wandering around."  The girl snaps her gum and flips her hair over her shoulder, snatching up Nora's schedule and moving out into the hallway without chekcing to see if Nora was following.  The crowd seemed to part for her when she walked, or maybe it was just that her angry welcoming comittee knew her way around.  "I'm Evangeline, by the way."

 _Evangeline,_ Nora thinks, because of course this girl would have a name like that.  She led the way without saying anything else, and deposited Nora at her english class without waiting for a thank you.  "Just wait for me when you're done, okay?"  Evangeline was walking backwards, and two freshman boys scrambled to get out of her way.  "I'll come back."

Nora thinks that she won't.  She feels a little silly waiting there, but Evangeline shows up a minute later, talking into her phone, and doesn't say hello when she sees Nora, just snaps her fingers.  Each class, Nora thinks that Evangeline won't show up, that she'll just stay here until next bell rings and then look like even more of an idiot, but she always does come.   The hospitality seems to end at lunch, when she deposits Nora at a table full of people who paid more attention to their books than the new girl, but its okay, becuase Peter keeps up a steady stream of texts.  And when lunch ends, Evangeline is there to pick her up.

"I take the bus."  Evangeline said, the two of them walking down the front steps.  "So I'll see you in chemistry, okay?  Sit by me this time."

"I can give you a ride home," Nora offers, before thinking about it.  It's not that she doesn't want to help her out, it's just that she's worried Evangeline won't be any more interested in talking to her than she had been all day.  And she probably wouldn't be able to find her way back.

"Okay,"  Evangeline says after a minute, and gives her a real smile for the first time that day, bright and dazzling.  It turns out talking isn't a necessary thing during the twenty minute ride, because Evangeline put the windows down and cranked the music up, and Nora felt like she was in the beginning of one of those coming of age movies.  

Evangeline pauses before getting out, reaching over to snatch up Nora's phone and typing in her number.  "We're friends now,"  She announced, like it was that simple.

And maybe it was.

 

 

When she gets home, Captain America is in the kitchen.

Nora isn't sure she's ever going to get used to saying things like that.  _Black Widow came to walk me home from work because Peter couldn't.  The Hulk just opened that jar of pickles for me.  Captain America is in my kitchen._

"Hey,"  He says, swiveling around on the chair to look at her.  Steve (that's what he said to call him during that day he got tired of waiting for Tony and decide to teach her how to drive in the city traffic) smiled brightly, like he wanted nothing more than to talk to her.  "How was school?"

"Good."  She moves to the fridge, because even if America's number one hero was sitting there, she wasn't about to be stopped from getting her after school snack.  "Enjoyed your public service announcement about the importance of education."

He has the grace to look embarrassed, but appearred to soldier on, going through the normal small talk question that adults ask their friend's kids.  "Make any friends?  Tony thought you were worried about it."

And that makes her feel bad, because he obviously woke up early just to see her off and all she had done was continue to be upset about her pancakes having a smiley face. _This is new for him, too,_ she reminds herself.  "I did, actually."  She feels her phone vibrate, sees Peter's name light up the screen and takes it as her cue to leave.  "Turns out I was worried for nothing."

 

 

"You good?"  Tony asks later, after he'd finally emerged from the workshop and Cap had finally gone home.  He'd been working on fixing the scratches in Steve's shield, something neither of the men thought he would ever have to make any changes to.  

Nora knows what he's asking.  It's his version of saying that he knows she was worried, and he's here if she needs to talk, but it might be easier for both of them if she didn't.  "Yeah,"  She says, and finds that it isn't a lie, because Evangeline had followed her on Instagram and had sent her a list of clubs that she might be interested in joining. "I'm good."

 

 


	5. The Stark Foundation

Nora had never gotten to go to any of the school dances.

Not that their school really had the money to make it something exciting.  Eden had gone to one every chance she got, so Nora got the basic idea of it.  She'd gone with Eden and her mother to the outlet mall three hours away to spend all day trying on dresses, and then spent another afternoon with Eden picking out the make up and nail polish from wal-mart that could coordinate.  And then the day of the dance Nora would be over at her house to help her get ready and watch her pose with whatever date or group she went with, where they'd then be off to eat at the local diner and then to the school.

"You really don't miss anything,"  Eden had told her dutifully the next day, her hair still held in place by all the hair spray.  "They just put lights up in the gym and pretend its a dance floor, even though it all smells like sweat.  And none of the moms who volunteer to make cookies actually makes cookies, they just buy packs of stale oreos and set them out on a table."

Still, Nora had wanted to, to feel what it was like to get all dressed up and pretend that their nothing special was actually something very special.  But she never had been able to, because dresses cost money and her father had considered dances to be something rediculous anyways, so she never really got the nerve to ask him after he told her no freshman year.  (Now, she could probably just tell Tony she wanted to go to the dance and not only would he buy her a dress, he'd let her rent a limo and offer to have the after party at his house.)  

This, she thought, sitting in a chair as Evangeline works at doing both Nora and Wanda's hair, was better.  They were getting ready to go to some Stark event, this time something that Tony is throwing to raise money for his relief foundation.  According to him, all she had to do was show up and smile and talk about how much she loved her new life.  _Lie through your teeth, if you have to,_ he had said when he first brought it up, but Nora was more into it than he had expected, already thinking about dresses and make up and picking out how to do her hair.  The rest of the Avengers were invited, too, but only Wanda was young enough to really get as excited as Nora.

(Peter was coming, too.  At the moment, he was trying to remember how to tie a tie.)

"Thank you for doing this,"  Wanda tells Evangeline, twisting to look at herself in the mirror.  "I would never have gotten this on my own."

"I would have no idea what to do. Or wear,"  Nora added honestly, trying to let Evangeline know how genuinely grateful she was.  She had called Eden the minute she got the news, but her old friend had to admit that her fashion advice doesn't extend that far.  Evangeline's, fortunately, does.  "You're a life saver."

MJ was here, too, but had gotten bored and wandered off somewhere.  "Don't mention it."  Evangeline bent down, her face briefly coming into view in the mirror. "Just remember to get me Clint's autograph, okay?"

 

 

Wanda leaves with Clint and Natasha ( _she'd sort of imprinted on Clint, like a lost duckling, but Nora supposes she isn't one to talk_ ) and was replaced by Peter, who seemed unable to stop figdeting with his tie.  They were both heading to the gala with Tony when he got here, and for now they were just wandering around the living room, him yanking at his suit to make it fit right and her adjusting and readjusting her dress, in it had somehow been messed in the ten seconds since she last fixed it.

"You look fine,"  She said, when she catches him walking into the kitchen just to check his reflection in the microwave.  "More than fine."

Peter turns to her, and between the two of them anxiety was going full throttle.  Nora wasn't meant to go to things like this.  She was meant to be in a tiny town, where her and her friends idea of luxury was going to go to the movies instead of finding it on youtube.  "I got this from a thrift store."  He's whining, and Nora is rapidly approaching a mental break down herself.  She really wishes Evangeline hadn't left, or that MJ would reappear from wherever she went.  "They'll be able to tell."

"I can't tell."  She never would have guessed, but maybe that's because she hadn't been looking or really couldn't tell the difference between an expenisive suit or a cheap one.  All she knows it that it fits him perfectly, and somehow makes him seem taller and more confident to be dressed like that, and that she really wishes he would have his hair like that all the time, because it looks good.  Also, Nora's finding that it might be a good idea to just keep her mouth shut, because there's a fine line between reassurance and outright telling him how good he looks, which she thinks she might be readily crossing.  "You look like a proper Stark representative."

"Yeah, well."  He blushes, honestly blushes at that, turning away from her and stuffing his hands in his pockets.  She wonders how he's going to manage to hold a conversation tonight.  "You look nice, too."  He waves his hand in a circular motion, a gesture that was maybe supposed to encompass her new look.  "The hair is good."

Her hair is curly, and actually brushed, but she doens't get time to point that out, because suddenly Tony is in front of them, holding out a new suit jacket and cuff links to Peter, and a clutch to her that Pepper had told him she needed.  "Yeah, yeah, you both look perfect."  He rolls his eyes, she can tell, even if its from behind those stupid sunglasses.  She had thought he just wore those to be annoying, but turns out he managed to stick a computer in those, somehow.  "But we need to get going."

 

 

 _Surreal,_ Nora thinks, finally locating the word to describe all of this, when she slides out of the limo and accepts Peter's hand.  His hand is warm, and they keep holding on to each other as they walk into the building, smiling at the flash of the cameras and letting Tony usher them past the shouting fans and reporters.  It's the event of the season, Tony had told her earlier, and she could see now that he wasn't lying- they had passed mutliple people whose names she doesn't know but were definitely in some movies MJ made her watch, and politicians were scattered throughout the crowd.  

"Sorry," Peter says when they get to the back of the room and finally have time to breathe, drawing his hand away from her.  "They're really going to have a field day with that one."

It's the first time either of them have brought up the pictures of the two of them, the ones that show up in those magazines and occasionally pop up in day time talk shows.  The pictures don't bother her, but sometimes they make her wonder- the two of them leaning into each other on the sidewalk, her staring at him with rapt attention, and him carrying her books as they walk down the street.  It certainly looks like they're a couple.  

"Doesn't matter,"  She says breathlessly, nervously opening and closing her purse.  She's supposed to mingle, but how was she going to do that when she doesn't know anybody's name, or the proper manners, or whether or not a conversation should be ended or kept going?  That's what Tony should have been teaching her all this time, not how to work on cars, as fun as it might have been.  

"You must be the new Stark." There's a woman in front of her, neck dripping with pearls and rings covering her fingers.  She's old, and reminded Nora a bit of her grandmother, if her grandmother looked like she could command armies and had shaken people's hands so tightly that it hurt.  "I was surprised to see that announcement, him taking you in.  Never did think he was one to have kids."

Nora knew that she should steer the conversation towards the charity, or say how great Tony was, or motion for one of the Avengers to come rescue her, like Tony told her to if someone made her uncomfortable.  But she doesn't, just reaches over to grab onto Peter, seeing as he looked like he was going to walk away.  "Nora Reynolds,"  She says, the smile slipping on her face feeling off but right for the situation.  "Not officially a Stark yet."

The woman laughs, a cackle, and eyes up both Nora and Peter like she was considering taking a bite out of them.  Or baking them a pie.  It's an odd look.  "You're the talk of the party,"  The woman said wisely, not bothering to introduce herself.  "what are they calling you?  The girl who walked away?"  The woman snorted, a sound at odds with how she looked.  "Not very creative.  Or accurate, considering you jumped."

Nora stared.  Peter stared.  The woman just seemed amused.  Across the room, she could see Tony, weavig through people and trying to get to her.  "And here I was hoping it was my good looks drawing all the attention."

Deflect, redirect, make them laugh.  It was something she'd learn from watching Tony during his few interactions with people he didn't want to talk to, pushing them away from the topics of Iron Man and, well, Nora.  Not that she really wanted to stop talking to the lady, whoever she may be.  "That, too.  Stay away from that man over by the bar, he's a dog if there ever was one."  Nora looked to where she had been pointed, and saw a man older than Tony, looking over at her with way too much interest.  "It was quite heroic, what you did."

"Throwing myself out the window?"  She took a quick gulp her glass, and realized that what she thought was sparkling grape juice was, in fac, champagne.  "I'd call it stupid."

"Saving that little girl.  Hayden."  The woman blinked, soft and solemn and like she was sizing her up.  "I'm expecting good things from you, Nora Reynolds.  Great things."

 

 

It's an ominous start, one that Nora tries to push out of her mind while she moves around the rest of the party, smiling at the people who smiled at her and talking to those who had something to say, pointing the one who were willing to donate towards Tony.

"Haiti, I hope,"  She answered, upon one group of charming ladies ( _rich, incredibly beautiful, absolutely enthralled with the story of how she jumped out the building_ _ladies_ ) asking her where she would send the relief foundation, should she get the choice.  "At my old school, we sponsored someone to go to school.  He's graduated now."

Nora's good at this.  It's a surprise, a pleasant one, and most of the Avengers have taken to calling her over to avoid to talking to someone making them uncomfortable.  Maybe because this life of luxury hasn't lost it's novelty, or maybe because she was the next new thing, or maybe because she was young and pretty and didn't have a problem using that to her advantage.  Peter trails along behind her, hopping into the conversation when needed and giving lots of ancedotes about _Mr. Stark, great man, love working for him, he's opened a lot of doors for me and I'm so grateful for it, he really cares, you know?_

It's easy, until they get to the part of the evening where people dance (and she knew she was wearing a dress, but still, that was a shock) and she found the man the older woman had warned her about.  "Could I steal you away from this young man for a dance, young lady?"  He was smiling, and his eyes were twinkling, but Nora felt the urge to step away anyways.  But ther ewas no good way to get out of this, and Nora had learned before that sometimes it was easier to grit your teeth and work through something instead of denying it altogether.

Not that that makes it right, or easy, she reminds herself, holding out her hand for him to take, letting herself be led out onto the dance floor, looking over her shoulder at Peter, who now had Wanda beside him.  _Good,_ she thinks, when the music starts up and the man's hand finds it's way to her waist, fingers splayed so he reached the bare skin of her back.  

"So,"  They move across the dance floor, and he keeps his eyes on her the whole time, drinking in the sight of her.  "How do you like living with Mr. Stark?  Quite an adjustment, I'd imagine."

"I'm grateful,"  She parrots back, staring back at him with every muscle in her body going stiff, because his hand had started to move, was tracing the line right where fabric turned to skin, dipping underneath.  "He took me in when no one else would."

Nora was going to have to break away, cut it short, and apologize to Tony later, because as Wanda had told her, _the men are despicable, but they are wealthy._ Suddenly, Nora doens't care about how much money he could give, because his hands are going somewhere they shouldn't, and she's going to slap him, she really is, until-

"Mind if I cut in?"  It's Peter, who isn't really waiting for an answer but is smiling in a way that looks polite unless you really know him.  He moves in swiftly, and the man steps back with raised arms, admitting defeat, but his eyes stay on her even when he melts back into the sea of people.   

"Thank you,"  She breaths out, and Peter has her close enough to him that she can rest her head on his shoulder to hide the look on her face, somewhat melding herself to him before pulling herself straight and smiling.  "I didn't know what to do."

And that's the thing, isn't it, when you're young and pretty but there's someone big and powerful, someone you don't really think you can say no to, but they take things you never gave permission for anyways, so why even waste your words at all?  When they haven't done anything wrong so you can't tell them how disgusting they are, but you go home feeling dirty and can tell exactly where their hands brushed your skin, like its burned into you?  "Don't worry about it,"  Peter says, like of course there was nothing for her to worry about, because he was there.  She notices a camera flash as he turns them, moving to the outskirts of the dancers, down a corner where they won't be as much attention on them.  "But you still owe me a dance."

They dance.  Once, twice, all of them slow songs, his hands staying on her waist like she should and hers moving from his hsoulders to his arms and back again, the two of them just swaying instead of actually dancing, Nora stepping closer when all Peter seems willing to do is stay in place.  It's nice, and it replaces the feeling of that other man's hand on her, especially when they stumble and he catches her, pulls her right up against him and has one hand around her waist and the other brushing down her back.

"We should probably rejoin the party,"  She whispers, because they are close enough they don't have to talk loud, even with the music and the chatter.

"Yeah,"  Peter says, letting her get her balance back and stepping away to a polite, respectful distance.  Nora tries to tell herself that she doesn't feel disappointed.

 

 

"I had thought your father was a bad man,"  Wanda said to her, after the gala, after Tony had left to drop Peter off and then went with Pepper to deal with some industry emergency (though Nora suspects he just wants to talk to her and can't admit it), after they peeled off their dresses and washed off the make up and felt like themselves again.  "There was a war.  There were bombings.  One of them came through our building, and our parents disappeared down the hole in the floor, and my brother and I waited for either death or rescue, neither of which came.  They used your father's weapons to cause that pain."

Wanda always calls Tony her father, despite Nora's brief and feeble protest that technically, he isn't.  She doesn't say anything this time, just reaches across the bed to find her hand, squeezing it. They always end up sleeping in the same bed when they have their sleepovers, because Wanda would always stay in the same room as her brother ( _first because they were poor and had no other choice, then because she was often too scared to sleep alone_ ) and still missed him terribly, and because it reminded Nora of nights spent with Eden.   

"But he is not a bad man.  He is a very, very good man, and I am glad that you have come here to stay with him, becuase it's been a long time since I had someone I could count as my friend.  I do not think I have ever had someone to count as my friend, besides Vision, and he is... difficult, I suppose, and not the same as having someone like you to talk to."  Nora feels more than sees Wanda settle deeper into the pillow, pull the blankets up around her like a barrier, the official sign that they were going to go to sleep, though they had agreed it was time for bed hours ago.  "I suppose what I am trying to say is that there is someone else who knows what it is like to have the ground disappear from underneath your feet."

 


	6. Chapter 6

It's painfully obvious that Peter is looking for some sort of father figure in Tony, and its equally obvious that Tony cares about him more than he would if he was really "just an intern," but he holds Peter back at arms length, anyways, stopping their interactions with that weird _hand on the shoulder_ thing and important looking conversations that Nora never got to join.  It's ridiculous to watch, because Peter seems convinced that Tony finds him a little annoying and would rather not have him at the tower as often as he's beginning to be, and Tony keeps insisting that he doesn't get to be involved in Peter's life anymore than he already is.

And Nora just thinks it's just stupid, but she doesn't really say anything about it than a few eye rolls and exasperated sighs that let them know that she' s pretty certain that she's right and they're wrong.  And there's an awful little part of her that hates to watch it, because then there's a little ache in her chest and a twisting knife of jealousy in her stomach, because she wants that, wishes that Tony would be her dad for real and not their strange parody of a father with invisible lines in the sand that she's trying desperately trying not to cross.  She looks at them and thinks _I will never have that again,_ trying not to remember that she never had it in the first place.  

"You know you could stay right?"  She says, wandering down to the work shop after Peter had left.  Tony took a break from welding to check in on her, ask about Peter, see if there's anything she needed or if she was just hanging out.  He had walked in to talk to her earlier, and when he saw that Peter was there, had turned around and walked right back up.  "We wouldn't mind."

Tony doesn't answer.  They'd had this conversation before.  He and Cap had had this conversation before.  He and Pepper have this conversation a lot.  "Peter really looks up to you, Tony."  She settles down onto the couch, picks a book from the stack that had just magically appeared one day, and accepts the cup that DUM-E gave her, even though it he had mixed oil in with the coffee.  "It'd like, make his day."

 

 

Nora hadn't thought he had been listening, which is why she's so surprised when Tony joins them the next time she and Peter are watching tv.  They're watching some competition where everyone's making robots that Peter is really into, which Nora thinks is fair, since she made him sit through all three seasons of Hannibal.  

"You mind if I join?"  Tony says, with a very pointed look in her direction, and Nora turns away to hide a smile. 

Peter scrambles to sit up straight, tucking himself back into the corner and grinning. "Mr. Stark!"  He folds himself up so he looks like a pretzel, alternating between looking at the televions and smiling excitedly at Nora.  "We want the guy with the mohawk to win."

Tony sits down beside Peter, looking grumpy and awkward, but Nora could tell that he was glad to be there.  "Call me Tony, kid."  It takes a few minutes, but Peter finally shifts into a position that looks close to normal, if not exactly relaxed.  "And it's totally going to be the girl who wins."

 

They watch most of the season together, because Peter just discovered the joys of binge watching and doesn't know when to stop.  He falls asleep around episode twelve, slumping voer sideways on Tony's shoulder, who initially looked terrified but relaxed eventually.  

"Hey.  Peter."  He had let him sit there long enough that Nora was sure that Tony had grown uncomfortable, because Tony was never one to sit still for more than ten minutes, and he'd been there for two hours without moving.  Nora had told him that he wasn't allowed to move, seeing as Peter doesn't get enough sleep as it is thanks to Tony's internship, which seemed to be strong enough reasoning to make him stay put.  "You got to wake up, okay?  I got to go."

Peter snaps awake, faster that Nora thought he would, startling all three of them.  His eyes are wide and panicked until he remembered where he was, shooting back into the couch cushions and then relaxing, avoiding looking at Tony.  "Sorry, Mr. Stark, that was my bad."  He's embarrassed about it, but Tony just shrugs, watching him stifle a yawn behind his head and not so subtly try and rub the sleep out of his eyes.  

"You looked like you needed the sleep,"  Tony gets up and stretches, does that weird shoulder pat thing before walking down to the workshop.  "Don't worry about it, Peter."

 

 

"It's not a big deal."

"It's a _huge_ deal."

"You fell asleep."

"On his shoulder!"  

It keeps being a reoccurring topic, one that Nora wants to steer away from him just because she doens't really know what to do with it, but Peter kept bringing it up, sputtering out excuses and worries.  He gets bright red every time he talks about it, and the expression on his face is the most accurate portrayal of the word cringe that Nora had ever seen.  "Why does it even matter?"  She says, exasperated.  "You sleep everywhere!  Everywhere!  You feel asleep stretched across both me and MJ the last movie night!"

"This is different,"  He hissed, like there's some possible way that Tony might have been able to hear them from three floors away.  Though there is the all seeing Jarvis to worry about, so maybe its a possibility.  "He's Mr. Stark.  He's my boss.  And that was... unprofessional, that's what that was."

"Listen."  Nora doesn't think she could take much more of this, and this one of those times that MJ would be thrilled to witness, because she thinks that Nora has trouble taking action when it's needed.  But at this point its just ridiculous.  "Tony cares about you.  A lot.  You're like, some weird honorary son for him, only he gets to return you if you get annoying."

Peter stops and stills.  "Really?"

"Yeah."  Leave it to Peter to think that Tony would take just any other high school intern out for lobster to celebrate their ACT score.  (Though Nora had to admit, it was a very impressive ACT score.)  "You should hear him talk about you.  He.."  She wants to say _he loves you,_ which, while it might be true, maybe isn't her place to point out.  "He thinks you're the smartest kid in the word.  Never shuts up about how smart you are, with the decathlon, and the math, and that stupid Iron Man lego thing that you and Ned made him."

It was very stupid.  It was Legos.  And it sits on Tony's desk in his office, right beside his picture of Pepper.  Nora really hopes she doesn't sound bitter.  "The point,"  She says, biting the words out and trying to steer herself back on track, "Is that he doesn't mind that you took a nap on his shoulder.  He doesn't mind that you're here and the time and that sometimes he cooks you dinner.  And he definitely doesn't mind when you text him about stupid stuff, he really likes that, I heard him tell Pepper so the other day."

Peter nods, and Nora nods back, uncomfortable, and trying not to pay attention to the feeling in her stomach that makes her feel like she's jealous, though of what, she isn't sure.

 

 

Except she is sure.  Because Peter isn't even really tied to Tony in any way other than the internship, and here they are, with Tony poking fun at him and looking forward to him coming over and telling Cap that _he's not here today, was getting some award at the school, I'm proud of him._ Because he doesn't have to ask Tony to repeat himself when he talks math or science, because he gives a real answer when Tony asked what he got on his chemistry test instead of subtly shoving it further down into his bag, because Tony seems to go out of his way to see him.  Because Nora's pretty sure that even though she knows Tony cares about her and would buy her anything she wanted and would take her out to dinner if she got a good score on her ACT just because that's what he's supposed to do, it's been a while since anyone's been proud of her.

So she sits and sulks and is angry about it without knowing why, pushing it to the back of her mind because _this is something you can't have, take what you can and be grateful,_ until the day when she comes down to the kitchen to grab some water and sees Tony leaning against the counter, drinking coffee and holding the story she wrote for her creative writing club.  

"Did you write this?"  He holds it up, and that's a stupid question, since her name is on it.  She feels uncomfortable, the same way she always does when she has to watch people read what she wrote.

"Yeah."  

"It's good."  He doesn't sound surprised, just impressed.  "The teacher sure liked it.  Used up a whole pen telling you good job."

Nora nods, not sure what to say.  She knows it's good.  There's not much she is good at, but she's good at making up stories, mostly because it's easier for her to disappear into it, to get lost in the rhythm of her hands on the key board, to parcel up pieces of her life into paragraphs and metaphors until she shapes something different.  _Your characters practically come off the page, they're so real,_ Her old English teacher had told her, back in that old school where they didn't have funding for anything other than football.  _You need to find a way to do this for real, to find your lane and run with it, because this is real talent._

"Thanks."  She clears her throat, and then because he already read it, decides to go full in.  "The teacher, uh, actually sent that one off to this friend that runs a magazine, and they're going to publish it."  Nora had been bursting with that for a while, because it was a real, very distinguished magazine and they were publishing it, and even though Eden had been excited for her, it was nice to see the impressed look on Tony's voice in person.

Tony nods, once, twice, and flicks through the pages again.  "Go get dressed while I go call Pepper,"  He says, throwing it back onto the table.  "We're going out to celebrate."

(The next time Natasha is over, Nora catches him showing it to her, and two weeks later when the two advanced copies of the magazine show up in the mail, one of them gets framed and is hanging up on the walls, and Nora doesn't feel like she has a reason to be jealous of Peter anymore.)

 

 


	7. Halloween

She had always liked Halloween.

Nora isn't sure why, because its not that she's a fan of horror movies or ghosts or anything like that.  She thinks it has something to do with the fact that every other holiday was such a major let down that Halloween became her favorite by default, even if the only fun thing she ever did was eat a lot of candy with Eden and puke it up the next morning.

"Why are we doing this again?"  MJ asked, talking through a mouthful of popcorn and motioning at the tv screen.  Tony let her have people over- though let maybe wasn't the word, didn't kick out her friends when he found them in his house might have been the better description.  "None of us even like horror movies."

Eden couldn't come.  Nora's trying to ignore the stab of anxiety she feels whenever she looks over at the spot where she would be sitting, because that opens a lot of doors she doesn't want to examine too closely.  The ones where she starts to think about how the calls are becoming less and less frequent, how the homecoming dance passed and someone else must have gone to try on dresses with her, how she can feel Eden ever so gently extracting herself from Nora, because _it's easier for both of us, we can't be tied together this closely when we're so far apart._ Eden likes to explain a lot of things away with her philosophies and those poetic, soulful quotes she has memorized, but this one, Nora knows, is bull shit.  This is just two people growing apart just like they should, but she can't let go.

"Because it's Halloween,"  Nora shot back, ignoring the way that Ned flinched back when the chainsaw man popped onto the screen.  She does like horror movies, though they were never her first choice, and had been absolutely appalled to find out that the other three had never seen Chainsaw Massacre.  Or Saw.  Or anything good at all.  "And on Halloween you watch scary movies."

They humored her.  They humored her because they had all been there when Eden called and said that she wasn't coming, that the school was throwing a party and she didn't want to miss it, that she was going there and then to her girlfriends house and maybe they could do something next week?  And then they had sat and let her pretend that she wasn't upset about it until Ned finally said that they would just come over and keep her company instead, and when Evangeline had found out about it she had gotten huffy and insisted that she come, and then Wanda had to be invited because it felt wrong not to, even if she couldn't come because she was off saving the world.  

They watch one movie, and then two, and then Ned leaves in order to catch the subway home, and MJ and Evangeline disappears down into the basement, promising not to touch anything that looks like it could explode.  Nora didn't really believe them.

"I kind of hate horror movies,"  Peter says, after they've gone and the two of them watch three other hot girls in bikinis get murdered.  "Like, really don't."

"It's tradition,"  She whines, but when she looks over at him he does look a little pale, so she just turns the light back on and pauses the television.

"Let's make a new tradition, okay?"  He gets up, drags her to her feet and out into the kitchen, gets out everything he needs to make cookies and then blasts Monster Mash through the speaker system, which draws Evangeline and MJ out from the basement.  "This ones better.  And has nothing to do with Eden, so you won't be sad anymore."

Nora stares at him, which is right around the time she gets sent a picture of all her old friends together, and throws the phone onto the couch, which is where it stayed for the rest of the night.  "Yeah,"  She says, ripping open the packet of chocolate chips and passing them over to MJ, who had produced a book out of thin air.  "New traditions are good."

 

 

New traditions are good, but Tony coming home to find his kitchen completely ruined isn't.  

It's not ruined, exactly, but it is covered in flour and has melted chocolate, and there are four teenagers slumped over each other on the floor that he doesn't seem to know what to do with it.  _Finally,_ Nora thinks, because he's staring at her like he might actually say something, and his not yelling at her or telling her what to do or having any rules at all other than "don't take the jet anywhere without telling me first."  _Finally, he's going to yell at me._

He scrubs a hand over his face, then steps over Peter to get to the bottle of brandy that he always has open on the counter.  "Did you drink any of this?"  He asks, holding it up to the light like he's checking to see if any had magically disappeared.  

Nora blinks up at him, because she was on the floor and she was tired and her muscles ache from where she was bent into the corner.  "No."

Tony nods.  "Good."  Then he walks away, like he can't bear to look at it.  "You're cleaning all this up."

 

 

 

That's all he has to say about it, even after all her friends leave and he comes upstairs to find her standing on the counter, scrubbing at the peanut butter that somehow made its way up to ceiling.  Which is odd, because she can't remember any of them even using the peanut butter.  

Eden calls her around three in the afternoon, clearly hung over, which is another new and awful thing, because they had promised each other that they would never touch the stuff, even when they were twenty one and it was okay for them to do so.  "So how was it?"  She asks, and there is a muffled voice in the background that Nora is pretty sure belongs to the girlfriend, who Nora has yet to meet.  Which is also new.  

"The party?  Lame as always.  Everything here is lame."  She's distracted.  It's one of the first times she hasn't given Nora her full attention, and Nora can feel a bit of bitterness well up in her even though she tries to smash it back down.  _Eden does not belong to me,_ she thinks, trying to get used to the idea that there may come a day where she doesn't have anything to do with Eden at all.  _I don't get to be mad at her for having a life.  "_ How was your thing with Peter?"

Except she is.  Mad, that is.  "It was with the whole group.  Not just Peter."  She pauses long enough for Eden to get done talking to the girl on the other end, who might be the girl friend, or, now that Nora has time to think about it, could be the replacement best friend.  "And it was fun.  We made cookies."

"Ooh, cookies, how exciting."  Eden was making fun of her, Nora knew, but she couldn't bring herself to stop talking.   To stop caring.  To stop wanting to tie the two of them together.  "You know, with all the money and the new toys and your famous friends you've gotten, I would have thought you would have learned how to have a good time."

The conversation was exhausting even though it only lasted a few minutes, and Nora was pretty sure they were fighting.  She didn't want to fight with her, even though she said some things about Peter and Tony and how she left everyone behind, like it was her choice to do so, that stung.  

Nora still wants to talk to someone, so she calls Peter instead.  

 

 

When she sleeps that night, she dreams of falling.

It'd gotten better, but now it was getting worse, with the dreams of the ground disappearing underfoot, of metal monsters, of the burn on her hand, the skin burning and bubbling and just melting away until she's looking down at her bones.  She throws herself through the window, Hayden in her arms, and there is Spider-Man, but he doesn't catch her this time, just watches her fall and picks up more robots while she lays there in the dust, throws them into more buildings that all fall and bury her under their collapse.

When she wakes up, it takes her longer than normal to remember where she is, to think that she needs to breathe, to bring her back to herself.   They're replaying the footage, releasing new articles and new information as the six month anniversary of the disaster tick closer, and Nora hasn't been able to avoid it, to the point where it was seeping into her sleep again.  She gets out of bed on shaky legs, making her way into the hallway, and is stopped by a shadow at the end.

Nora starts, straightening up, but then realizes it is Tony on his way to the garage.  He's leaving again, maybe to save the world, when she really wants him to just stay here.  "You okay?"  He asks her, face concerned and the keys in his hand jingling.  "You don't look so good."

"Yeah."  She forces herself to sound calm, to take a breath, and wonders why she keeps thinking its a good idea to keep telling people that when she is pretty sure that she is the complete opposite of fine.  "I'm fine."

 

 

 


	8. Chemistry

School is long, long and slow and lonely, with the only bright spots in her day being when she gets to see Evanegline and when her phone starts buzzing with one of Peter's texts.  

And it's hard.

"How is it possible that you got this?" Tony asked her, for the third time, upon seeing her grade in chemistry.  It wasn't a failing grade, but it was close, and she wanted to take her report card and put it through the shredder to keep him from seeing it.  Apparently that wouldn't have mattered, though, because at the beginning of the year he had set up that progress report account and was checking it once a week.  And it was good, a solid B, until the last few tests got put in and it wasn't good anymore.

"Because I failed some tests!"  She threw her arms up.  This was ridiculous, an incredibly domesticated scene, with him waving that paper around and her sitting at the table like a scolded kid, Pepper trying to play peace keeper between both of them.  It wasn't working, because while apparently staying out until four in the morning and sneaking off to go to out of state protests weren't a problem, getting a D in chemistry was the thing that finally made it stick.  "They were hard, I didn't get the material, it happens!"

Tony stared at her, and it reminded her of the time when Peter said he couldn't go to the gala becuase he had homework.  Like it was a shitty excuse and both of them knew it.  "You were tested in order to get into all these classes.  You tested into this class, which means you are able to do it."

Nora doesn't know how to respond to that, because she's feeling like the room is too crowded even though there are only three people.  She wants to run, and she also wants to yell, tell him that those placements tests were crap and it was a lot harder when none of the words seemed to want to make sense.  But she doesn't get the chance to, because a call is coming in and Tony is gathering up his keys and sunglasses, and Pepper is running after him with her heels clacking on the floor, shouting.  "You,"  Tony says, turning back when he gets to the elevator.  "Stay put."

 

 

Nora doesn't stay put.

Mostly because she never had liked to be told what to do, and also because the longer she sat there the more it seemed to snow ball- him being mad, the whole thing happening between her and Eden, how lonely she was at school, how reporters followed her around and she was still being paraded at Stark events, and she was having to work to remind herself that the ground was solid all over again.  So she ran, taking that car that Tony bought her out of the garage and turning back towards home, where she knew she belonged, and where people wouldn't freak over something as silly as a grade that wasn't even failing.

"What are you doing here?"  Ty stares at her when she walks into his house, where the same after football party is going on, just like he's been doing since the sixth grade.  He doesn't act like its a bad thing, just a surprising one, and he shoves a cup into her hand so hard that the drink sloshes over the side and splashes onto her hand.  "I thought you were famous now."

 _Famous._ She realizes that they have the same magazines here, have been looking at the same stories, probably bought them just to read about her.  Nora fights down the urge to run away or snap at him, just accepts the drink and raises it up in a parody of a toast.  "Not tonight,"  She says, looking behind him at everyone else, who had fallen silent upon seeing her.  "Tonight I'm getting drunk with you."

 

 

Nora didn't get drunk, but she did drink enough that Ty wouldn't let her leave, motioning her to couch instead with all the others who couldn't be bothered to get up.  It was nice to see familiar faces who were glad to see her, even though they had a lot of questions about the avengers, and about what its like to have everything you ever wanted at your fingertips, as well as _so ar eyou dating that Peter guy or the Michelle girl, we've got a betting pool on it_ and were very dissapointed when the answer was neither.  

"Where are you going to go?"  Ty asks her when they're done stuffing their faces with pancakes from the diner, and she's out on the street, squinting down the road like she's thinking of leaving.  "You can't hide here forever."

"Who says I'm hiding?"  

He gives her a long look, one that makes her think he hadn't missed all the times she had looked at her phone and pressed ignore, turned down the calls from Tony and Pepper and Peter.  "Why else would anyone come back here?"

 

 

She goes to the library, just to say hi.  Then to the park to get on the swings, and to the school just to look at it in all its tiny, impossible to get lost in glory.  And then she drives to her old street, stands out in front of the house, which has a for sale sign but no owners.  

"I can't believe you came back,"  Eden says from behind her, looking like she's torn from being annoyed and excited.  "What are you doing here?"

She came to sit beside Nora, cross legged on the sidewalk.  Both of them stared at the house for a while.  "We had some good times in that house."  Nora said, wanting to go back to the time when she was allowed to walk right in through the front door.

"Bad times, too.  You can't forget the bad times."  Eden looked beautiful in the light, beautiful and upset and still like her best friend in the entire world.  They should be making plans, saving money for that apartment they were going to room in together.  "You don't have to worry about those anymore."

"They never gave me time to say good bye.  So that's what I'm doing."  Nora had realized, at some point during the night, that there was no home here for her to come back to.  She doesn't fit in anymore, and its clear that even though her old friends look at her like they're happy she's here, she doesn't have a place with them.  

"It doesn't mean we aren't friends,"  Eden said, when it was clear that Nora wasn't going to say anything else.  "And I do mean that.  You have some crazy party, invite me.  You have big news, call me.  Need a kidney, I'll donate.  We just can't be everything to each other, anymore.  You have to let go of what you left behind, Nora.  Its the only way you're going to be happy there."

"I know.  I know."  She feels weepy, weepy and pathetic and stupid that she drove all the way out here just to stare at her old house.  "I really love you, you know that, Eden?  You're like, my favorite person."

"I love you, too, Nora."  She gets up and puts one hand on her shoulder, leaves it there for a minute as they stare at the house.  It looks sad, too, little and leaning to one side, like its in desperate need of repairs.  "It's just that life makes you say good bye sometimes and you don't get a choice."

"Life sucks,"  Nora says, bitterly and much too loud, and finds comfort in the fact that there are still some things that they can agree on.

 

 

She calls Peter and tells him where she is, and then lets him know that she isn't coming home just yet.  "I don't think Mr. Stark will like that,"  Peter says, and she has the feeling that Tony is right beside him, whispering things that Peter is supposed to tell her.  "Maybe just come home?"

"Tell him if he wants me to come home before tomorrow morning, to come and get me."  Nora's surprised with herself, because she normally doesn't say things like that.  Normally she'd do whatever is asked of her.  "I'll see you later, Peter."

She doesn't wait for him to say good bye, just hangs up and then starts climbing up the trellis.  It really didn't look good, or match the house at all, but Eden had needed someway to sneak into Nora's room when they were little, so they stole this from her grandmother to use.  

The view from the roof is the same. She sits up there on her own for a long time, watching the sun set and the stars come out.  Nora traces the constellations again, because you can't see stars like that in the city and she'd missed that.  She'd missed a lot of things she hadn't even known she'd had.  

"You and I have different definitions of what it means to stay put,"  Tony says, landing beside her and then stepping out of the suit.  She doesn't look back at him, just continues to stare up at the night sky.

"I didn't actually think you'd come."  

"Course I came.  Technically, I am responsible for you.  It's not responsible to let you spend a weekend doing,"  He paused long enough to sit down beside her.  Turns out he still isn't good at the _get mad when they do something wrong_ thing.  "whatever it is you came here to do."

"They didn't let me say good bye, the last time."  She knows that he knows what time she is talking about, when she first got taken away from here.  "They came to my house, and they gave me a trash bag, and they put me into the car without letting me even cross the street to talk to Eden.  I thought I might feel better if I came to do it myself."

Tony nods like that makes sense.  Maybe it does.  "I'm not that upset about the chemistry thing."  This sounds like a thing that Pepper told him to say.  

"Yes, you are."  She laughs, and so does he, and its a strange thing, to be sitting on her old roof with Tony Stark, the literal Iron Man suit standing gaurd behind them.  

"I just don't understand how you got that.  You got A's in everything else.  I expected you to be more, I don't know, consistent."

She doesn't answer for a while, and he doesn't seem to want to press her into talking.  "Science sucked, back here.  We had to share text books, so you couldn't take them home and study, and you couldn't do labs, because the things that were supposed to light never did, and the things that weren't always caught on fire.  And no one cared, anyways, because it's not like any of us were getting into college, so why study for an exam when you could go to a football game?"  Nora knows that this feels like an excuse, but this is also a real thing, why the other kids are moving ahead while she's still just trying to catch up.  "So,yeah, I got the placement test because it was common sense, but then I went into the class and they moved so fast, and they were all so far ahead of me, and we had to do labs as part of the grade, and- I was behind before we even started, and I couldn't catch up."

It was the most she had ever said to him in one time, and the most honest she'd been.  She decided not to stop, because it felt good.  "And its on the top floor and I sit right by the window, so I can't even pay attention, because I'm too worried checking to make sure there aren't any cracks in the floor."

"Okay."  He nods, smacks both his hands on the gutters, and then stands up, arms held out for balance.  "that we can work with."

 

 

Nora hadn't known what he had meant by that, only that as soon as they got home he got to work putting a tracker in her car that worked independently of the GPS.  She went inside and didn't look at Pepper until the woman came over and hugged her.  "Don't you ever do that again,"  Pepper says, because even if Tony doesn't parent. Pepper has no problem doing so.  "Scared me half to death."

Peter says pretty much the same thing when she calls him and apologizes, lecturing her through the phone in a way that would have made his Aunt May proud.  "I just, are you crazy, I mean never mind the muggers and the creepy men and the fact that you're so directionally challenged you can barely get to my house, there are literal countries that would like to get their hands on you just to get to Mr. Stark, what were you thinking?"

Peter is better at parenting than Pepper and Tony combined.

But then she goes down to the workshop with a cup of coffee like she does every night, and Tony is waiting for her, her chemistry book spread out on his desk, which is miraculously free of grease and old coffee cups and projects.  "What's this?"

"This,"  He said, motioning to it with a pencil.   "Is your book.  You're going to read it.  And I'm going to help.  And we're doing this twice a week until you can do it on your own."

Nora thinks about arguing, but then sits down, because she really does need the help, and she thinks that it might be easier with Tony there to act as a walking encyclopedia.  "Okay," She says, and thinks that he might not be so bad at the parenting thing after all.

 


	9. Sick Day

****

Nora doesn't like to admit that she's sick.

At first it was because even when she was little, she knew that going to the doctor would take money that they didn't have.  And then, when she got older, it was because she knew that even if she did complain about it, her dad wouldn't do anything about it.  By now, it's just so ingrained that she doesn't even consider saying anything about it, even though she knows that Tony would have no problem paying for some medicine and Happy could drive her to the hospital to get checked out, because driving her around is part of his job description.

But she doesn't say anything, which is how she ends up at the Avengers compound during the school's three day weekend ( _she's officially a flight risk after the whole running away thing, so Tony doesn't let her stay alone at the tower if she can help it_ ), lying on the floor and gasping for air like a fish out of water.   

Vision is there, because he doens't get the concept of walls and seems to float in whenever he hears something that resembles distress.  It's normally annoying, but Nora finds she doesn't mind this time, pulling herself to her feet and still choking on the nothing that is in her lungs.  "Are you alright?"  He asks, and he looks just as strange and terrifying as ever, but Nora lets him help her to her feet anyways.  

"Not really."  It takes an effort to say even those words, but she chokes them out.  _Asthma,_ she remembers, and Nora hasn't had it so bad for a long time, but maybe because of the cold and the not sleeping thing, its back and worse than ever.  "Could you maybe-,"

She wants him to get Wanda, but when he comes floating back in, Captain America bursts in a second later, kneeling down beside her.  "I'm fine," She coughs out, and wonders why, again, she insits on telling people okay when everyone can see that she isn't.  "Just a cold."

"Just a cold."  He snorts, and then he's helping her onto the bed, letting her bend over in a way that shouldn't help but does.  Nora doesn't notice Natasha there until a minute later, when she comes over and puts a bottle of water in her hands.  "You can barely breathe."

"Yeah, well."  She leans back, slumps against the pillows.  It feels like there's a weight on her chest, and every time she takes in a breath, its like there's hooks holding her lungs in place and every time she tries to make them move, they pull at her.  "It's a really bad cold."

Vision laughs, but no one else seems to think its funny.

 

 

Wanda sits with her while Dr. Banner pokes around with a stethoscope and pronounces that yes, hospital is a good idea.  And then she sits with her for another hour, holding a bucket under her chin and rubbing at her back while they listen to Thor and Natasha and Clint and Steve argue about how they were to get her there, seeing as neither Tony or Pepper would be able to make it back until morning.

"For the love of Odin,"  Thor finally says, voice booming.  "I'll take her."

There's a pause, and then Natasha speaks up.  "No way.  Tell Tony to meet the two of us there."

The team is surprsingly good at taking care of her, with Steve carrying her to the car despite her protests and Wanda going in search of a change of clothes.  Natasha drives slower than she would have thought, then leads her into the hospital and tries to make the time pass faster as they sat in the waiting room.

"Tony's on his way,"  She says, calm and comforting, once they got back to the room and Nora had gotten to lay down on the bed.  "He said to tell you he'll be here as soon as he can."

"He didn't have to come back for this."  She struggles to sit up, leaning back against the pillow.  "It's just a cough."

Natasha glares at her.  "It's a bit more than just a cough."

Nora wanted to argue, but seeing as the nurse brought in an oxygen mask a second later, it was probably a losing battle.

 

 

Tony must have come to get her, because she was back at the tower, but she didn't remember him showing up to get her.  She didn't remember a lot of last night, actually, other than she was given some medicine that calmed her down but made her sleepy, and Natasha singing something that sounded like it was in Russian.  

"You're awake."  Tony crossed the room to get to her, pushed her back into the chair when she tried to get up.  "Just in time for medicine."

He's surprsingly strict about this, watching her as she swallows all nine pills (nine!) and then sits down oppsoite her, rubbing at his temples like she had given her a head ache.  "Next time,"  He says wearily, "Tell me you're sick when its still something some antibiotics can fix okay?  I have a heart condition.  Calls like that are going to kill me."

She squinted over at him, trying hard to focus, because Nora was tired and the room was blurry and he looked upset, even though she couldn't remember what she did wrong.  Maybe she failed another chemistry test?  There's something wrong her with her chest, with her lungs, and she can't get enough air in, which is scary but not, because she's pretty sure whatever Tony just gave her made it impossible for her to be scared.  "Sorry,"  she mumbles, the word dripping off her tongue without her really focusing on making the sounds, and then she turns her head back into the couch and gives into the drowsiness pulling her down, because when she sleeps, there's no pounding in her head or ache in her chest to worry about, just the metal monsters and Spiderman's promises.

 

 

Nora isn't the best at being sick.  Mostly because she hadn't ever had someone to take care of her before, or the option to take it easy when she's sick.  So its a constant struggle for whoever shows up to take care of her, which is mostly Tony, but occasionally Clint, Natasha, or Steve.  (Or once, Thor, but that was more of a head ache than a help.)

"I feel for you, man,"  Clint said, clapping Tony on the shoulder when he comes back from the meetings.  "My little ones are less stubborn than her."

Tony, who seemed very lax about most things, was very strict about her getting better.  He makes her eat, three meals a day, plus something at night with her other medicine.  And she has to sleep, and do so sitting up with him in the kitchen to hear if she has another asthma attack, and he doesn't let her out of his sight long enough for her to really do anything.  "Why did you let it get this bad?"  He asks after the third time she got a coughing fit so bad that it actually made her throw up.  She doesn't like to use her inhaler, but he makes her, threatening to check her into the SHIELD hospital if she didn't.

"It's not my fault I got sick."

"It's your fault its this bad."  He has circles under his eyes, and he looks tired.   "Why didn't you go to the doctor before?"

"My dad never took me to the doctor,"  She says, choking out the words between gasps.  "Old habits die hard."

He stares at her, face hard, and Nora can't shake the feeling that he hates her dad a little bit, even if he is dead.  

 

 

MJ comes to visit her one day, which is strange, because MJ never goes out of the way for anyone, and now she was sitting beside Nora while she breathes into an oxygen mask. "This is pretty bad for asthma,"  She had said, standing in the doorway watching her cough up her lunch without making a move to help.  "You sure it isn't contagious?"

The rest of her friends seem content to help from afar, with Ned sending her links to funny videos, and Peter sending her videos narratting his day, and Wanda snapchatting her. Evangeline sends her a get well basket but wasn't allowed up because Vision said he didn't want to deal with strangers, and Eden calls her just to yell at her for being stupid.

"You're really sick, aren't you?"  Peter asks, on the day he finally does come to visit her.  "I didn't even notice."

"Don't feel bad."  She says miserably, leaning back into his chest, because he didn't seem to be worried about getting him sick.  _Crazy immune system,_ he had said, waving off her concern.  "Neither did anyone else."

 

 

Things were almost back to being okay when Tony comes into her room holding her medical records.  Or if not okay, at least the weight was off her chest and she could breathe again without it hurting.

"We need to talk."  He sits down beside her and turns to look at her with the same expression on his face that he had used when he finally asked if she wanted to talk to someone (she didn't), if she and Peter were a thing (they weren't), if maybe she wanted to have a super suit of her own just in case (she had been tempted, but said no in the end).  It made her want to run away but couldn't because she couldn't make it more than a few steps without feeling like she needed a break, so he could just walk behind her.  "About this."

And then he flips the file open and she thinks that she should have tried to run away anyways, because now she's looking at her X-ray records and knows that Bruce, the traitor, must have pointed this out when he came to visit the other day.  Because there were things that didn't feel right, and more fractures than there should be, and reports of her coming in to get her lip stitched back together when she was only seven and didn't really know how to lie yet.  

She picks it up and looks at it like she had never seen it before, like the she and twenty other kids didn't have this same conversation with the guidance counselor every year.  "I was a clumsy kid."

"Cut the bull shit."  He sounds angry for the first time in all the months she'd been here.  It seems that she'd finally found the thing that made him mad.  "Someone did this to you, and no one did anything."

Nora didn't really want to talk about this, because it only happened every once in a while, and it wouldn't have happpened if she had kept quiet or behaved or stayed out of his way.  "A lot of kids had it worse."

"That doesn't make it okay."  He shakes his head at her, worried and disappointed.  "You had, what, arm broken twice, two broken ribs, that thing with your lip when you were seven, so I would like to know what you did to have that done to you when you were seven, because it takes a lot of force to rip through skin like that."  He's glaring at her, and she wants to shrink into nothing, because it's hard for her to talk about this on a good day, and this was not a good day.

"Does it matter?"  She had known that Tony hadn't been happy with how he grew up, with the expectations and his father's words and the things that they didn't agree with each other.  No one drinks like he does and doesn't have something they're running from, even if they don't know what it is.  But this was different.  "He would be drunk, and I would be there, and I should have  known better.  And he's dead now, so there's nothing you can do about it now, so can't we just leave it alone?  Please?"

She gets out of bed, struggles across the room, but he's there, helping her over to the chair.  "It's not okay, what he did.  You know that, right?"

Nora blinks, once, twice, until the tears burning in her eyes had disappeared.  She doesn't know how to explain that he was still a good person, a good dad, that they loved each other.  That it was only because something broke in him when her mom died, that pain like that warps people until they do things you would never expect to come from them.  "I do."  Nora moves onto her side, turning her back to him, and wonders if there has ever been a time where she hasn't been broken and beaten down by something.   She moves to turn the light off, and the scars on her back stretch and tighten, making her think that if there was a time where she was healthy and whole, she'll never get to have that again.  "But that doens't change a thing, does it?"

 

 

Tony doesn't bring it up again, and niether does she.  It's not something she needs to talk about it, even though Eden said she should at least tell Peter.  So its a surprise when Peter shows up in her room, eyes roaming and hands fidgeting just like that first day, looking nervous just to be in the same room as her.  

"Eden called me,"  He blurts out, when the silence presses down on both of them and he can't take it anymore.  "Told me about your dad."

She picks at the bed covers, stares at him, and he stares at the wall.   "That doesn't mean he didn't love me.  Or that I didn't love him."

"I know."

"And I miss him a lot."  She says, and there's a crack in her voice, one that has Peter coming over to sit beside him.  This is another difference between here and home- back home they'd compare scars and stories, because everyone gets hit and everyone laughs later, because they know that there's a lot of pain that comes with love, even if it isn't exactly right.  "But this is better here.  Easier.  More room to breathe."

If he thinks that this is strange or awful, he doesn't say anything, just lets her sit and cling to him and breathe in the scent of his cologne, the one MJ got him for his birthday and he only wears out of sentiment.   "He died trying to be a hero."  She traces the line of freckles on his arm, considers what he would do if she turned and kissed him instead of talking.  "I never would have pictured him doing that."

"He was trying to give you time to run,"  Peter says, like that's the only explanation, like he was there, like he knew, and Nora melts into him because she was thankful someone else saw that, that blurry line between good and bad that her dad exists in.  

"He wasn't that bad."  Nora says it, but if it was true, she thinks she would have cried more when he died.  The press had had fun with that, the fact that she hadn't cried at his funeral.  "He just wasn't that good, either."

 

 

 


	10. Thanksgiving

Pepper isn't coming for Thanksgiving.  Nora's not really upset about that, but it seems like Tony is, because he's spending more time sulking in his work shop than normal and doesn't look up when she comes to check on him.

"Why isn't she going to be here?"  She asks, because Nora's nosy like that and now feels invested in Tony and Pepper's relationship.  

"She's going to visit her family."  He threw the wrench down onto the table with a clatter and then turned to look at her like he's deciding how annoying he finds her.  Probably very.  

"Why didn't you go with her?"  

Nora almost feels bad, wondering if maybe he hadn't been invited, but no, she remembers walking into a conversation about that and feeling bad for interrupting.  "Because you're here."  He waved a hand at her without looking at her, like that proved all the reasons she couldn't be left alone.  "And I can't leave you alone on the holidays, that would be rude."

Tony doesn't normally have a problem with being rude, either to her or anyone else, because there's generally no bite behind his bark and everyone knows it.  Unless he's in the suit.  Then you're probably a bad guy and you're going to die.  "You could have left me.  I've been alone before."  She does that now, throws out tidbits about how life was before the attack of the metal monsters, but this time he just gives her a _look,_ one that reminds her that she had run away, once.  "Or I could have come with you.  Parents love me." 

"Maybe next year,"  He says, and she figures that unless they've finally admitted to loving each other, it wasn't going to happen then, either.

 

 

Pepper may not be able to join them for dinner, but Peter and Aunt May can, so Nora considers it an even trade.  And then the Avengers show up too, including Wanda and Vision, and it promises to not be such a bad holiday after all.   

Peter disappears after dinner, and Nora follows him out onto the balcony, even if she has to stand right beside him to keep herself from panicking.  "You alright?"

The air was cold, and it makes her chest ache, like she had just run a mile and can't catch her breath.  "Yeah.  Just a lot of people in there."  They both turn to look back in the window, at where Natasha and Clint were arm wrestling ( _and Clint has kids, super adorable kids that like to climb all over Steve and Thor, who would have thought_ ), and Aunt May was chatting with Wanda.  "I just needed a break."

Nora nods like she gets it, and she does, because she's learned that Peter really does have a problem with sensory overload.  She thinks it might be just because he's so smart, like he wants to pay attention to every little detail in the room and can't, so is brain just turns into this jumble of colors and sounds that are more painful than actually helpful.  "We could stay out here for a bit."  She pulls him to the ground, accepts his offer of his jacket, because it is really cold.  "Give you a breather."

He decides that would be a good idea, so they huddle together, his arm around her shoulders and her leaning back into his chest.  "There aren't as many stars out here.  You ever seen real stars, Peter?"  She's talking soft, and he has to lean in even closer to hear it, so she's practically whispering it into his ear.  "Because these aren't really stars."

"We've got city lights.  Who needs stars when you can make your own?"  His hand squeezes hers, to let her know that he was joking and he thought that her question was a reasonable one, but she could see the beauty in the city stretching out in front of them, all glaring lights and never ending noise.

"I'll take you somewhere you can see the stars someday,"  She tells him.  Nora thinks that there's a lot she wants to do with them, and how they keep adding to their list- find the best coffee in the state of new york, pet a sting ray, make cup cakes, go to the beach, and now, see the stars.  Like if she adds enough he'll never be able to get through them, so he'll just have to be her friend forever.  

"That sounds really nice,"  He tells her, something odd in his voice, and Nora knows that if she turns to look at him she might find him looking at her, and there might be no turning back from that.  So she doesn't turn, just stares ahead, and tries to map out the constellations, but can't because the lights are too blinding for the stars to overpower.

 

 

She dreams again.

They're never good dreams, always bad, and this time she's fighting off a metal monster in order to protect Peter, who somehow was there this time, only the monster had her fathers face and he was hitting her over and over, her ribs cracking when he kicks them, arm snapping when she falls, lip splitting.  And when Spiderman comes to save her, he swings overhead but doesn't do a thing, and all his promises are said with Peter's voice.

Nora jerks awake, clutching at the sheets just because she still thinks that she needs something to hang onto, gasping into the darkness as she tries to find air.  "Tony,"  She chokes out, too quiet for him to hear, but he comes anyways, probably because Jarvis tells him everything.  

"It's okay."  He helps her to the edge of the bed, keeps her steady while she coughs and chokes and cries, and then lets her lean against him when she's too tired to hold herself up.  "It wasn't real.  It didn't happen."

 _But it did,_ she thinks, and the palm of her hand burns, so she itches at it to try and make it stop.  _Not like that.  But it did._

"I'm sorry."  It's hard to get the words out, and that crushing weight is back.  It's so heavy that she pictures herself sinking down into the mattress, straight through the floor and down into the dirt.  "I'm okay now."

"No, you're not.  Stop saying that."  He's still holding onto her, and she's still crying a little.  "It's okay not to be."

"I want to be."  She's digging her nails in so deep that when Tony pries her hands apart, she's surprised to find that she isn't bleeding.  "I'm trying to be."

They sit in the dark, because the light is too blinding, and she tells him about the dreams, about the ground disappearing, about spiderman and her father, and the ache in her chest that never goes away because her ribs never did heal right.  And she knows he understands, because he's got a dad that he hates and loves at the same time, and she knows that Afghanistan and the whole in the sky are what keeps him up at night.  

"You could talk to someone."  Tony says later, after it became clear she wasn't getting to sleep and they moved from her room to the kitchen, where he made her hot chocolate.  Nora didn't drink it, but she did hold it in her hands to warm up her fingers, because she's always cold.

"No."  Nora didn't mean for that word to come out so strongly, with so much force behind it, but it did, loud enough in the quiet that it had Tony reaching for her again, like she's going to break down all over again.  She's not willing to change her mind on this, though, because there's something scary to her about a stranger staring at her from across a desk and the possibility of those little pills tumbling out into her hand every morning.  "I'm not seeing anyone just to have them tell me that I'm crazy."

"Okay."  Again, Nora feels incredibly relieve that it is Tony that she got stuck with, Tony who knows about the panic that hides underneath your skin and how the doctors and the therapists and the comfort might not help sometimes, Tony that won't force her to do anything she doesn't want because he's still new at this making rules thing.  "That's fine.  But you'll talk to me, right?"

Nora nods, thinking that if this is all he wants her to do, to cry out for him and then be dragged into the kitchen for comfort food, she can probably manage that.  "Okay,"  She says, and he smiles his tired smile that means that he's happy and proud of her, the same one he gives when she finally gets a concept after an hour of tutoring.  "I can do that."

 


	11. Decathlon

Nora knows that Peter is nervous, even if he won't admit to it.  She finds the fact that he's even a little unsure about the coming decathlon rediculous ( _regionals,_ he had said, all excited, _almost to the big leagues_ ), considering he's the smartest person she's ever had the chance to meet in her entire life.  And yet, here he was, sitting at the table just pushing food around his plate instead of eating, hands shaking so bad that she has to put the last lego into place, trying to rub away the itching in his eyes that's only there because he hasn't gotten a good nights sleep in over a week.

"Alright,"  She says finally, when MJ's practice flashcards are scattered all around his bedroom and he looks so panicked that Nora is half afraid that he's about to burst into tears.  "We're done for tonight."

"No!"  Peter bursts out, gathering up a group of questions that he'd already been asked and answered correctly three times that night alone and dumping them into her lap.  "Just a little longer, please?  Last one, I promise."

"You're going to do fine."  She catches at his hands, because they are shaking, and she knows the signs of an oncoming panic attack when she sees one.  "You know all of these.  You've known them for weeks.  You and MJ and Ned have this in the bag."

"You think?"  His eyes are shining.  Other boys might have been embarrassed about this, but Peter isn't, just lets his voice crack without mentioning it and leans against her to hide the fact that he might be crying.   Its the product of too many late nights in a row and too much pressure, and Nora is slightly tempted to go to MJ and tell her that she needs to have a serious talk to Peter about taking care of yourself.  

"I know you will."  They are impossibly close to each other, and they are all alone, and Nora is thinking that thing that she only lets herself think when it's in the middle of the night and can't sleep, or in moments like this where she's caught off gaurd- that Peter is super sweet, and smart, and that maybe if she would lean in and close the distance between them he wouldn't mind, even if it complicated things with him and Stark Industries.  "You always do amazing."

He stares at her, eyes roaming across her face and down to where his hands are still being held still by hers, and Nora can actually feel when he makes the shift, when the thought in her becomes something that they might actually be about to do- until Ned bursts through the door carrying yet another lego set, throwing the door open so hard that it bangs against the wall and startles Nora so bad that she jumps across the room, suddenly terrified that it was Aunt May back early from work.  "Guys, you are not going to believe-,"  He pauses in the middle of his excitement, noticing for the first time the cards on the ground and Peter's glare and Nora's red face.  Ned has the grace to look ashamed of himself, even though Nora is almost certain he doesn't have a clue why they're looking like that.  "Did I interrupt something?"

Peter is silent.  Nora gets to her feet with effort, brushing off invisible dirt and fixing already straightened clothes.  "No, I was just leaving."  Lie.  She'd have to stand on the corner and wait for Happy for at least a half hour.  But that's better than sitting here, with Ned oblivious and Peter unable to look her in the eye, her still trying to figure out if what she thought was about to happen had really been about to happen, or if it was just that she wanted it to.   Nora crosses the room to grab her bag, ducking down to kiss Peter on the head ( _which is, admittedly, weird_ ) before walking out.  "You guys are going to win, okay?  I can feel it."

 

 

Nora replays the moment in her head a lot on the drive home, with the panic in his eyes and his hands between hers and the look on his face when Peter turns to her and makes a decision, one that felt like something was going to change between them but maybe nothing would have, because they are just two kids that are two shy and scared to really do anything.  She doens't talk much to Happy, who keeps asking her about her day and finally asks if she and Peter got in a fight, and when she tells him _no, nothing like that_ he looks back at her with an knowing sort of smile that was both comforting and infuriating all at once.  But now she's back at the tower, with Tony sitting across from her on the couch, and she doesn't have the energy to worry about a possible relationship at the moment.

"What are you doing tomorrow?"  She moves around so she can crane her neck to look at him, waiting until he looks away from the tablet to listen to her.  This is another new thing, that he pays attention to her and seems to like to talk to her and will let her ask questions about his life without her feeling like he would snap at her any moment.  

"I've got a day off."  Tony sounds as surprised to say it as she is to hear it, because between Stark Industries and his Iron Man thing and working with Shield to continue to iron out the mess left by the Winter Soldier and the accords, he rarely gets a day to just a stay at home.  "Why?  Did you want to do something?"

Nora pictures that for a moment, dragging him out for a father-daughter day somewhere, going out to lunch and then to a movie like they were just normal people.  "Peter's regional decathlon competition is tomorrow.  Are you going?"  He hesitates, just long enough for her to tell that he's thinking his _peter isn't my responsibility_ spiel, even though he really does want to be there.  "You'd be a shitty father figure if you didn't."

Tony snorts and drains the rest of his coffee, which is a good sign, because it means that he's going to try and get all his work done today.  "I'm a shitty father figure anyways."

"No,"  Nora says, thinking of all the effort he put into helping her with school, and him always reading the stories she leaves on the counter for him and writing comments in the margins, and all those late nights where she wakes up with a scream in her throat and he's theres, appearing like magic, always there when she needs him.  "You're really not."

He stares at her.  This is the closet they've come to talking about it, about this, about the fact that technically, he is her dad, even though they don't really hug unless she's crying and he acts like she's a nuisance most of the time and they've never said that they love each other like a normal parent and kid would.  "His aunt May can't come.  I think it would mean lot to him."  Nora gets up, refills his coffee and throws the blanket where he would be able to reach it, because he always falls asleep on the couch even though it hurts his back.  "I'm leaving at ten, if you want to come."

 

 

Once, while Nora was sick and still floating on the medication they gave her, Pepper had sat down and talked to her about Tony.  Nora couldn't remember the whole thing, but she remembered Pepper saying that it was really good for Nora to be here, that it was helping Tony just as much as he was helping her.  That somehow, despite everything, Tony had taken his pain and worry and insecurities and buried it to the point where he had convinced himself that no one would love him, really, and that he should hold everyone at arm's length.  _It's hard for him to do, with you,_ Pepper had said, stroking her hair back and holding her when the coughing fits make her shoulders shake.  _He loves you so much.  Would do anything for you.  I think it's good for him, to have a kid to care for._

Nora also remembered thinking that she was going to do better, to be nicer, that she would ask Tony more questions and make him spend more time with her, because she liked having someone to take care of her and not be worried that they might turn on you.  She still had trouble calling him dad, or saying that she loves him, or anything like that, but when she walks into the kitchen the next morning and sees Tony waiting in his suit and sunglasses, the tickets Peter had sent them sticking out of his pocket, she couldn't stop herself from walking over and bumping her shoulder against his, smiling.

They get their early, early enough that Nora and Tony duck back into the restricted area to find Peter, and she tries not to be smug when she sees the way Peter's face lights up at the sight of them.  She wants to go to him, but doesn't, partly because he was stammering his way through a conversation with Tony and partly because she had found herself with an arm full of MJ ( _who was a hugger, who would have thought_ ), Ned bobbing in the background behind her.  "You came!"  MJ says, incredibly happy, and Nora could see the signs of nerves in her, too.  

"Of course I did!"  Peter joins them, looking just as happy and nervous and unsure as he did the first day they met, which makes her think he is still remembering that moment in his room, but she pushes past that and wraps him in a hug, too.  "You didn't think I would miss this, did you?"

They're interrupted by a slightly strangled sound from behind them, like a cat having its tail run over.  She turns, slightly alarmed, to see Tony staring over the rims of his glasses at Flash, who certaintly did look like the jerk that Peter had described.  And from the look on Tony's face, he had picked up on Peter's situation at school, and wanted nothing more than to squash this kid like a bug.  And yet, he doesn't do anything, just walks over to the teacher and continues to act like the supportive parent he was there to be.

(Tony has learned to ignore crappy people, and so has Peter, but when Flash comes and throws an arm around Nora's shoulders and drags her in, calling Peter a name and calling her pretty, she has no problem ripping away from him and slapping him so hard she thought it might bruise, which chased away any pre-competition jitters MJ, Peter, and Ned might have had.)

 

 

They won.  This didn't come as a surprise to anyone, but the team acted like it was a miracle, Peter disappearing under a doggy pile of hugs after he answered the winning question and popping back up with a trophy in hand and a smile on his face.  "Told you he was good,"  Nora whispers to Tony, who was standing and clapping and beaming, and actually pulled Peter into an actual hug when he reaches him.  

"Let's celebrate!"  Tony says, which he probably cleared with the teacher but might not have.  "Whatever you want, wherever you want."

Which is how Nora ended up crammed in a booth at a steak house between Peter and MJ, Flash across from them looking slightly terrified, all of them laughing and leaning into each other and Peter's arm somehow finding its way around her shoulder, Nora pointedly ignoring the look she gets from Tony when he notices.  "You're my favorite,"  Peter says, voice giddy from the win and from the thrill of being together with his friends.

"You're all of our favorites,"  MJ adds, laughing, and then adding, "Except for Flash.  He hates you."

It's a good night, a night where Nora meets some of Peter's other friends and has it proven to her, again and again, how smart he is.  A night where its proven once and for all that not only does Peter actually work at Stark Industries, he has such a close relationship with Tony Stark that he buys him dinner and he can put his arm around THE GIRL WHO WALKED AWAY, a fact that was said on the morning announcements at his school on Monday.  A night where she and Peter drag their feet when Tony goes to the car and the rest of his team goes to the bus, standing in the shadows and trying to forget about the fact that there are undoubtedly ten other people.

"I mean it, you know,"  Peter says, not looking at her.  He's been squinting a lot that night, into the bright lights and flinching away from the noises. It had gotten better during dinner, after Tony slipped him something under the table that helped him stay more calm.  Nora just hopes it wasn't drugs.  "That you're my favorite person."

This feels different than the night before, in his room.  Different because now they are both calm, and looking at each other, and know that this is an important thing they are about to do.  Different because if she stretches up to kiss him, she knows for sure that he will kiss back.  "And I meant what I said before, that I knew that you would win.  I never had any doubt."  She goes on tip toe, kisses him quickly on the cheek and then backs away so fast she knows he won't follow, running through the parking lot and jumping into the car, trying hard to avoid the smile on Tony's face.  And when she looks back at Peter, he's still standing there, staring after her.

 

 

"You're a really good father figure, you know."  Tony looks at Nora in the elevator, and then looks away, probably counting down the seconds until he can get away.  It was after they got home, nearing midnight, but Nora thought that she had to say this, had to tell him that he was doing a good job and she was grateful for it.  "For me and Peter."

"I'm trying,"  Tony says, which isn't much of an emotional talk but she'll take what she can get.  

"It's working,"  She says, and steps out into the kitchen, expecting that to be the end of it, but then he starts to talk again.

"You two are good kids."  Nora doesn't mind that he lumps her in with Peter.  She's not jealous of him anymore.  "I'm sorry about how it happened, but I'm glad you're here."

Nora nods.  "Me too, Tony."  She thinks of her old town, with its real stars and roads that need repaving and families just trying to make it to the next day, and her own house with her and Eden on the rooftops while her father drinks himself to death downstairs.  "Me too."

 

 


	12. Girl's Day

Nora still wasn't used to having friends besides Eden that genuinely like her, so when she emerges from the dressing room with a pile of dresses slung over her arm to find MJ and Evangeline bent together and giggling, she has to fight down the voice that keeps telling her that maybe, just maybe, she doesn't belong here with them.  But then the two of them look up, MJ looking like she can't decide if she's annoyed or happy, and Evangeline barely able to talk through her laughter, and Nora decides that she's being silly to worry.

"You are not going to believe this!"  Evangeline gasps out, stumbling over, holding the phone out to reveal someone's Instagram page, MJ following behind her but not making it in time because she's still wobbling in the high heels they had forced her to try on.  "MJ has a boyfriend!"

"What?"  Nora takes the phone like its something precious ( _and it might be, she had once watched MJ hack through Tony's security with it because they had locked themselves out on the balcony one night_ ) and squinted down at the boy on the screen. He was cute, and tall, and seemed to have a lot of pictures that have to do with decathlon and science and political protest rallies, all of which were places that MJ could have met him.  "You haven't said anything about him?"

"It's a new thing,"  MJ said, clearly embarrassed.  She took the phone back but was smiling, which made Nora think that they hadn't upset her too much.  "I didn't want to act like it was something when it was nothing, and then all of a sudden... it was something."

She shrugged helplessly, and Evangeline squealed before talking about how they just have to meet, and how they should double date, asking all the appropriate questions that Nora should be asking upon finding out that one of her best friends has a guy she really likes and who appears to really like her back.  Instead, she could barely force her way through the bare minimum of responses, because she was too busy thinking of another guy, the one guy she liked but was able to keep at arms length because _MJ is my friend, MJ had him first, I cannot do that to her,_ a barrier that has now gone up in smoke and probably had never been there in the first place.

"That's great, MJ,"  Nora makes herself say, tearing herself out of her own thoughts and overrated teenage boy drama long enough to even pretend to be a supportive friend.  And she would be supportive, later, once she made sure that Peter was okay with this new development and found a new way to remind herself that this thing she feels for Peter is officially a **bad idea** and **never going to happen.** And then, because having a best friend who got a new boyfriend comes with certain responsibilities, she snatches the phone back and does her own run through of all his social media.  "Have you kissed him yet?"

 

 

 

Aside from MJ's announcement, the day went just like all the other girl's days that Evangeline had forced Nora (and subsequently, MJ) into going on.  They spend too much time trying on clothes that look great but they have no reason to buy, wobbling around on heels that would snap their ankles if they took a misstep, picking through make up they don't really want but feel compelled to look at anyways.  MJ and Nora inevitably get stuffed into things that are too tight, or too short, or too low for them to ever walk outside in, with Evangeline waiting just outside the dressing room, telling them in an increasingly louder voice that _it's so perfect for you, that color is great, you have to learn to show some skin sometimes, ladies._

It's not something that Nora would have pictured herself enjoying a year ago, but she's learned to enjoy the spotlight, so she tries on the outfits that Evangeline picks out for her and twirls around in front of all the mirrors while one of the other girls posts a video of it to snapchat, and maybe by the end of the day she'll have agreed to have bought something, too.  Shopping is a lot more fun when you actually have money to spend.

"It was fun,"  Evangeline says, ripping off a piece of her pretzel and tossing it at MJ when she made a face.  They are at the same soft pretzel stand that they always go to after shopping, right off to the side of the food court, close enough to get a table but far enough away to be away from all the families with screaming toddlers.  "You just don't want to admit it."

"Yeah, it was-," Nora is cut off midsentence by an eruption of static from the two giant TV's on either end of the food court, both of which switched on at the same time and filled the room with a nails on the chalkboard kind of shrieking before the picture cleared up.  The whole mall has gone silent for what might be the first time in history, every toddler pausing with mouths full of food and business men with their phones half hanging away from their ears.  Nora can only stare, because the picture has morphed into a woman that she doesn't know but looks familiar anyways, one with unwrinkled, expensive clothes, perfectly manicured nails, and her hair pulled into a tight bun without a single strand escaping it.  She looks like a PTG mom, the kind that works long hours but always ends up the bake sale with home made cupcakes anyways, the kind that has three kids hanging onto her and demanding attention at any given time but is still able to look calm and collected.  The kind that Nora had always shied away from as a kid.  

"Hello,"  The woman says, smiling at all of them, and Nora cannot shake the feeling that this woman is familiar, even if she had never heard her voice before.  It was something in the eyes, maybe, or the gentleness in her smile.  This broadcast wouldn't have been unsettling by itself, except for the fact that every television and phone and tablet that Nora could see was playing the same image.  "I'm here to talk to you today about the Avengers."

Nora is reminded fiercely of the story Tony had told her, about how he went to catch terrorists that were broadcasting horrible images only to find a drug addicted actor who was confused about what was going on.  Beside her, MJ had reached to grab onto her hand, but Evangeline was just staring at the screen with her jaw set, like she felt personally offended by what was going on.

"For many of you, they have been heroes, pushing back the evils of this world that you cannot understand or hope to defeat.  But for a large number of us, the Avengers represent a disaster that is quite tangible, a grief and danger that we now feel that needs to be stopped."  The screen is now flooded with other images, buildings falling, obituaries, children screaming and people running away from the Hulk, and Nora is horrified to see the clip of Spider-Man throwing that robot into the building, followed by her and Hayden falling, falling, falling.  "And I am here to send the avengers a message: you will be stopped."

There's a roaring in Nora's ears, like the ocean, and she can't figure out where its coming from.  The woman was still talking, and so was MJ, saying something about Tony and getting out of here and that maybe it wasn't safe for them to walk around alone anymore and that they should really call Happy.  "You took my son from me,"  The woman said, and there was real pain in her voice, the pain that Nora knows well herself, but she cannot imagine doing something like this.  "And nothing happened to you.  No punishment given, no apology made, no remorse shown.  But it's time to end that."  Nora wants to tell this woman that she's wrong, that they did feel remorse, that sometimes bad things happen, that there is always collateral damage when trying to do something good.  That it is no one's fault but that bad guy's, and that is definitely not the Avengers.   "Soon, we will make sure that there will no longer be creatures like you who can ignore the rules and get away with anything.  Soon, there will be no Avengers, and no one will have to live in fear of the destruction that you have the ability to cause."

The screen cut off, over just as fast as it began, displaying what must be the logo of their group before fading back to black.  The room stayed silent for a moment, then scattered whispers popped up, the volume rising until it is back to its regular volume.  Like it never even happened.

But it did, Nora thought, reaching for her phone, which had begun to play Tony's ring tone.

"Tony?"   She's clutching onto the phone, desperate to hear him tell her that this was just a joke, that everything was fine.  That nothing bad was going to happen to any of them.  But he didn't, because it wasn't Tony, it was Natasha.

"Tony's part of the emergency meeting to deal with this, so he couldn't call.  I can't talk long, so I need you to listen to me, okay?"  Natasha's voice was low and steady, comforting despite the bluntness of it.  "Can you do that?"

"Yes,"  Nora said, aware that the people closest to her were staring to recognize her, maybe from the recap of that clip shown by that awful woman, or maybe from the magazines, or maybe just because she looks more afraid than everyone else.  "I can do that."

"Good.  I need you to stay exactly where you are.  Happy's coming to get you, Tony pinged him your exact location.  Do _not_ move until he gets there, alright?"  Any chance that this was nothing to worry about seemed to be evaporating as she watched, and Nora looked at the other two, who were watching her with wide eyes.  "Everything's going to be okay, Nora.  We just need to be careful until we figure out what's going on."

"Yeah.  Yeah, I know."  She tried to make herself sound calm, because Tony and Natasha and the others don't need to be worried about her when they had a potential national security breach to worry about.  "Don't worry about us.  We'll be fine.  You just take care of you."

They say good bye and hang up, and Nora takes a moment to steady herself before turning to Evangeline and MJ, trying to think of something comforting.  "Happy's on his way,"  She says, ignoring her phone, which was filling up with texts from Peter and Eden and Ned and even Steve, which just said _it's going to be okay, we'll sort it out, just stay where you are,_ like she could have somehow missed the seriousness of the conversation the first time.

 

 

 

"Everything's going to be fine,"  Tony said, which is about the tenth time he told her not to worry, that everything's okay, the avengers could handle anything that got thrown at them.  Nora wants to believe him, but can't quite make herself do it, since he flew all the way to the tower in his Iron Man suit just to check on her, and immediately started working with Jarvis to up the security.  It should have been comforting, but wasn't, because he wasn't giving her any details and she had spotted a poorly hidden police car at the end of the lane that must be keeping an eye on her.  "Peter's going to be here in an hour to stay with you until Wanda gets here, alright?  I'll be back as soon as I can.  Until then, just stay in the work shop."

Peter was going to be her body guard, apparently, which was odd in itself, because there had been a lot of people that Tony knows that she would have picked to fight off bad guys before she picked Peter, no matter how kind and good and wonderful he is.  But she doesn't say that, just like she didn't say that she was scared, or didn't ask Tony to stay until Peter got here.  "It's going to be okay, isn't it?"  Nora asks, walking him back to the elevator.  "You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"

He looks down at her, and she can see what he wans to say, the _I don't really know, kid_ right on the tip of his tongue, but he doesn't say that.  "Of course it's going to be okay."  It's his show voice, the **Tony Stark** voice, which told her more than anything else that this was more serious than he was letting on.  "We fought back an alien army.  I think we can take this."

Still, she doesn't let him leave before dashing over and giving him a hug, wondering one last time if it would be too much to stop trying to be brave and ask him to take her with him.  "Just be careful okay?  I've gotten used to living with you."

He smiles, but doesn't promise everything, and steps back into the elevator, the doors closing just as he gets a call from someone undoubtedly more important than her, leaving her to sit in the workshop with a hammer held tight to her chest and only Friday for company.

 


	13. Christmas

Christmas comes slow.

Nora tries to get in the spirit of what might be her first real holiday season ever, not arguing against the peppermint and ginger bread flavored drinks MJ wants to get, good naturedly listening to Christmas carols on the way back from school with Evangeline, and helping Peter make Christmas cookies because he can't do it on his own.  Still, it's hard, considering that the news is still pondering over who the master minds behind the technology take over were and agents from SHIELD keep showing up at odd hours to talk to Tony.   

"It's all under control,"  Tony tells her each night that he happens to be home, whether its across from her at the dinner table or during their (now less frequent) tutoring sessions or standing in her doorway when he thinks that she's asleep and totally not texting Peter.  "We've gone up against worse and come out on top.  Everything's going to be fine."

Nora keeps wondering who he's trying to convince- her, or herself.

"I think we're going to go to the Avenger's complex, once you get off school,"  Tony says suddenly, looking at her over the rim of his sunglasses.  He does this sometimes, comes up with a burst of information that appears to be random when Nora really knows that it's something that had popped up on the computer feed being constantly shoved across his lenses.  "Spend some quality time with the team, all that nonsense."

Nora thinks of arguing, of telling him about the party that MJ planned to throw and Evangeline's holiday tea party (whatever that is) and the shopping that she still has to do, but doesn't, because his face now has the tired and strained look that he has after too many meetings crammed into too little time.  "It's getting worse, isn't it?"  She says instead, watching him carefully, trying to find the little flickers of expression that would let her know if he's lying or telling her the truth.  "The security threat went up again."

"No,"  He says, coming around to lay his hand heavy on her shoulder before moving on to the kitchen, the conversation over.  "Everything's going to be fine."

 

 

Nora isn't completely ready to give up on her idea of an exciting Christmas break,  so when the invitation comes in on her phone from MJ, she doesn't hesitate in going, promising FRIDAY that she would be back before morning and there was really no reason to alert Tony.  She knows, in the way that people always know when they're doing something potentially harmful, that maybe it's better off to just stay behind lock doors and not become a moving target, but the part of her that is looking forward to loud music and junk food and seeing Peter doesn't really care.  

"You're here!"  MJ says from her spot sitting on top of the counter, right where she said she would be.  She has a book in hand, the sudden outburst of noise causing those nearest to her to look over at the two of them.  Nora can already here the whispers spreading through the house, murmurs about _is it really her_ and _how did she get invited_ and _she's here with Peter, the internship, remember?_ "I didn't think you would be able to come."

"Of course I was going to come,"  Nora says automatically, but an hour later she wishes she hadn't, since she has a throbbing head ache and has no idea whose house this is and hasn't caught sight of Peter yet.  

"He's in one of the rooms upstairs,"  Ned tells her, smiling at MJ in a way that makes her think that the two are sharing a joke.  She hopes its something about her and not about why Peter went upstairs without telling her where he was at, to a room with a bed and no one to interrupt him.  "The noise and the lights get to be too much for him sometimes, ever since.."

He cuts himself off, MJ giving him a _look_.  If Nora had been paying more attention and not already making her way up the steps, she might have wondered what he was about to say, about what happened to Peter to make it hard for him to stand in a room with his friends when the music got too loud, but as it is, she's already on the top steps and peeking into every room, praying for the sight of just Peter, Peter alone and without a girl that isn't her or MJ.  "Peter?"  She says, peeking into one of the rooms, finding him with his head in his hands and perched on the edge of the bed.  "Peter, is that you?"

"Nora?"  He stands up like he had been electrocuted, the panicked look back in his eyes, and she regrets the fact that she had come up here to bother him.  He would have found them when he was ready.  "What are you doing here?  Mr. Stark said-,"

"Mr. Stark is in some foreign country without wifi,"  She says, taking his arms by the wrists and leading him back to the bed, back into the dark and the quiet. "As far as he knows, I'm the tower."

She can see it on Peter's face, the itch to tell Mr. Stark where she is and the want for her to be there with them fighting with each other, the exhaustion that comes from having too much to pay attention to finally wearing him down and letting him fall back onto the bed without making a decision.  _Not my problem,_ she can almost hear him say, and she takes a moment to stare at him before laying down beside him.  It's quiet and peaceful, until Flash and a handful of his cronies burst through the door with a bang, cameras in hand.

"There he is!"  Flash says, crowing.  "Penis Parker!  And check out who he has with him!"  

Nora sits up, but Peter stays where is, cringing and keeping his eyes closed, like not looking at it would make it all disappear.  She can see the blinking light that meant this was being video taped, and also MJ and Ned behind the group, Ned wincing and MJ jumping up and down, trying to fight through the group to get to them.  "Oh, go to Hell, Flash."

She wants to say something else, something that might actually sting and make the smirk slide off his face, but she can't, because she's well aware that this was on its way to every social media outlet these kids can lay their hands on.  "And look at that!"  Flash positively crows, grinning.  "Mistletoe."

There's a vindictive sort of pleasure in his voice, and now Nora is the one shrinking back, not knowing what to do with the situation she had found herself in.  Peter sits up, his face still too tired and his voice the one of a boy way too used to things like this, moving in front of her as if to shield her from sight.  "Leave her alone, Flash."

"I will, as soon as you two kiss."  It's immature, a middle school kind of taunt, and Nora really can't believe that she's sitting here listening to this.  "But I bet you won't, will you, Peter?  Bet she wouldn't kiss someone like you.  You ever had someone kiss you, Peter?"

His face reddens, and MJ and Ned stop trying to fight through, and Nora is left with the sense of helplessness that comes when she's looking at a difficult equation in chemistry, like this is something she can't fix.  She knows that Peter has kissed someone, knows all about Lisa (and his first kiss, this fumbling thing in the dark with a girl whose name he wouldn't tell them, told after they took shots of Ned's fathers whiskey), but he is making no move to correct them, just listens to Flash's increasing taunts.  "Why would she kiss you, Peter?  Girl like that doesn't want to kiss you."

Nora turns to him, and finds Peter trying his best not too look at her, but she can still see the apology in his eyes.  She spares half a thought to think of the fact that she's never done this before, does she really want her first kiss to be with an audience and just to prove someone wrong, but then the jeering is starting up again and Nora is leaning in, thinking that this is all going to be okay, because it's _Peter._

Peter, to his credit, take the surprise incredibly well, and it's a nice kiss, a sweet kiss, one that she might have enjoyed very much had she not had to turn back to Flash and the cameras, staring at them with one eye brow raised like she's daring them to say another word, and trying not to look at the expression on Peter's face, one that makes her think that that was definitely the wrong thing to do.

 

She's spirited off to the Avengers complex without having the chance to talk to Peter about it, spending the long limo ride watching and rewatching the video clip that Ned had sent her- Flash bursting through the door, her kissing Peter, and then her stalking forward to smack the phone out of Flash's hands.  Nora doesn't bother to ask how many people had seen it, it was a live stream, and only a handful of people had seen it first hand- the rest had heard about it through word of mouth, the story going strong.  Tony doesn't ask her what's wrong, just lets her fiddle with the phone and text Eden about how stupid she is until they pull up to the complex, where the memories of last night is lost in a flurry of hugs from Wanda and Natasha.

"You're here!"  Wanda squeals, as Steve picks up all of Nora's bags at once and hauls them up to Wanda's room.  "I've been so excited for this!"

"Me too,"  Nora says, and even though Natasha looks over at her with some amount of concern, Wanda doesn't seem to notice the lie.

 

 

She spends the next week with Wanda, going out on increasingly more insane outings- ice skating, rock climbing, escape rooms, all day shopping trips, manicures, the zoo- that were all paid for by Tony.  Finally, Christmas rolls around, a day that the Avengers celebrate by piling into the tv room and watching crappy movies, swapping presents and stories.

All of them except Tony, that is.

Nora goes to find him, poking her head in every wing and then being directed down to the workshop by Vision.  She has to stand and pound on the glass door for a good ten minutes before Tony finally turns around and notices, his face breaking into a smile when he sees her.  "What are you doing here?"  He says, and she can't help but notice the blueprint on the table for some new attatchement to his suit.  Another sign that he's more worried than he's letting on.  "Shouldn't you be up enjoying Christmas?"

"I was looking for you."  She folds herself into the chair and watches him work, wondering what today might have been like if there hadn't been a level ten security breach just a week ago.  If there had been dinner and presents and family she got introduced to, or if it would just be Tony and Nora sitting in the workshop at home, her trying not to fall asleep and him desperately hoping not to have to stay awake.  "Also, I have your present."

He freezes where he is before turning around, like he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.  "You,"  He says slowly,  "Got me a present?"

He's normally sarcastic to other people, but never to her, never mean and rude and angry towards her.  Still, she's unexplainably nervous as she lays the present on his table and watches him unwrap it, like there's a chance that he might tell her he doesn't like it.

It's a framed picture of Tony, Nora, and Peter, taken by MJ at the decathlon.  They're all smiling, caught in the middle of a laugh right as MJ had taken it, and Nora thinks its the happiest she's ever seen Tony.  "It's for your desk at work.  If you wanted it.  Pepper said,"  _Pepper said you were the only one without pictures of your family,_ she thinks, but doesn't say it out loud, and finishes somewhat lamely with, "Pepper said you would like it."  And then, because he doesn't really say anything, she adds, "Do you?"

Tony clears his throat.  "I love it, kid,"  He says, and that is good enough for Nora.

 

 

 _I'm sorry about them,_ Peter texts her finally, after a full of week of her typing and rewording and finally deleting texts that she never sent.

 _I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable,_ she tries.

_You didn't._

_It was just a kiss, you know?  No need for us to get weird about it._

Except it wasn't just a kiss, it was her first kiss and it was with Peter and she wants it to happen again but doesn't know how to ask for it, and it probably wouldn't happen anyways, because these are what one calls extenuating circumstances.  Still, she can't help but watch the tiny bubble appear and disappear as Peter thinks of what he wants to say, stopping and starting at least ten times before the bubble finally pops up on her phone.

_Sure.  Just a kiss._

He doesn't say anything else.

 


	14. New Years

She spends the rest of Christmas break with Wanda in the same way they had spent the first week, shopping and staying up late and trying to make it through all the seasons of Supernatural before Nora had to go back home.  There isn't any more news about the unnamed group of people who want to destroy the Avengers, and they haven't yet moved out into the open, so Nora finally persuades Tony to let her go back to his house in time for school to start, even if she's there with a new list of rules that she wouldn't have thought him capable of enforcing, things like she's not allowed to leave without Happy or Peter or Tony himself by her side, and she has to stay off of social media, and she shouldn't be near windows too often, though Nora can't see how that last one was going to help.

"It's just a precaution,"  He tells her, not looking at her as he shuffles through his brief case to find the papers he needs for that day's meetings.  Tony's heading off on a business trip, leaving her here with Friday to keep her on lock down.  "There's really no sign that they're going to be coming here at all.  Just better safe than sorry, alright?"

He is sorry, she knows, but that doesn't make it better when she has to turn down ten invitations to different parties and can't see Peter for a week.  She had thought that when she came here, after all the new friends she'd made and all the new experiences she'd had, Nora would spend New year's Eve doing something more exciting than just watching the ball drop.  And yet, here she was, watching Halsey sing in at the New York show and wondering if she could bear to call Eden and hear what exciting thing she was doing.

"It's not for long,"  Natasha tells her, promising to stop by in the morning, because she's Russian and a spy and doesn't have to worry about things like hang overs.  Nora would have found that comforting, had she not been dressed to go to a party that all the Avengers (and Nora, coincidentally) had been invited to go to.  "You'll get your exciting nights soon, okay?  We just need to keep you safe until you're able to have them."

 

 

Nora drifts off sometime after the ball drops, curled up on the couch in a way that would make her neck hurt in the morning.  She hadn't called anyone, hadn't texted Peter, but she had broken one of Tony's rules and gotten on Instagram to watch the live feed from his Avengers party, cheering out loud when the camera zooms in on Nat and Bruce dancing together and making a mental note to mention it tomorrow.  (Nora wouldn't learn until later that it was a decoy to lure the terrorist group out of hiding, the perfect place for them to strike, all of them there together and Tony running the show from some unknown SHIELD bunker.)

She wakes with a start around three, the numbers on the clock bright in the dark, and Nora has to take a second to try and get her bearings.  Without being told, she knows that something was not right, that something of that not rightness had woken her up, but she couldn't quite decide what it was, just pulling the blanket off her and tiptoeing over to the wall to peer down the dark hallway.

Nora really wished she had left some lights on.

"Friday?"  She says, and even though its a whisper the AI should have heard her, but she doesn't respond at all.  Instead there is only the small thread of static coming from the speakers that normally holds her voice, and then silence broken by the slightest of noises coming from the front room.  "Friday, are you there?"

Friday is not there, and neither is the internet connection, which should always be up since Tony powers it independently of the main power grid, and that also means that the towers defenses are down and all the doors had been unlocked for who knows how long.  _Exciting nights,_ Nora thinks, bouncing on the balls of her feet and wondering what to do, where to go, if this was something or really nothing.  And then there's the unmistakable sound of voices, people who either don't know she is here or don't care, too far enough away for her to make out what they're saying but loud enough to know they are close.  _Be careful what you wish for, I guess._

She stumbles backwards, into the storage room that really just holds spare weapons and spare parts, fumbling in the dark for a light switch so she can see what she's grabbing, settling on something that's basically a super charged taser and heading out into the living room again, tucking herself back behind the couch and crouching down.  She calls Tony, who doesn't pick up, and then calls Nat, who does, already breathing a sigh and warming up for a lecture.

"There's someone in the house,"  Nora cuts across her.  "FRIDAY isn't working.  The wifi's down, so nothing's locked, not even Tony's garage."

Tony's garage not being locked spells disaster, which is comforting only because Nora knows that the people downstairs aren't worried about her.  They're wanting to find Tony's stash of weapons, his blue prints, his records for all the improvements that he made to the Avengers complex and weapons and uniforms, a gold mine of information.   

"Where are you?"  Natasha says, voice deadly serious, and Nora appreciates for the first time that this woman has killed more people than Nora thinks she has talked to.  "Are they around you?"

"I think they're downstairs,"  She says, and listens patiently as Nat tells her to stay put, to find a room to hide in a pile stuff in front of the door, that Thor was on his way and the rest would be there as soon as they can.  Nora listens calmly, fully intending to do everything she says, but when she turns to run she thinks about what she's leaving them to do, about how the key to defeating the people she cares about may be in that garage down stairs, how someone entering Tony's work space could spell disaster for a lot of innocent people.

And she thinks about Tony, making a suit of metal armor and fighting his way out of Afghanistan, and the rest of the Avengers.  She thinks about the every day heroes she knows, of MJ staring down a group of riot guards at her protests, of Peter dashing through traffic to save a kitten, of Evangeline slapping a boy across the face when he had the nerve to cat call a twelve year old.  And she thinks of her father, her real father, who she tries not to think of because it makes her sad, but who stood up to something he could never hope to beat just to give his daughter time to run.  And then she turns down that dark hallway, down the stairs toward the voices and into the light.

They are not paying attention to her.  It looks like they're trying to melt the door to get into the garage, and Nora half thinks that she should just turn around and listen to Nat, because by the time they get through that Thor may already be here.  But she's already down here, already standing with her make shift weapon pointed at their backs, so she clears her throat and watches them all jump, spinning around with their guns raised.

"Can I help you?"  She says, and is surprised at how steady her voice is, at how light and sweet the words came out, like she was genuinely wondering.  Nora gets half a second to feel proud of that before they are coming towards her, clearly not planning on hurting her too badly, but at least taking her out of the equation before she can mess things up.

It becomes clear after that that she wasn't supposed to be here.  These people were not hardened criminals, they could not stomach the idea of reaching for their guns, and they were having trouble subduing a screaming and kicking sixteen year old, especially when she grabs the taser and jams into one of their thighs, taking the number from four to three.  They were people better equipped for hacking into a main frame and taking out all the power, of knowing what Tony's notes meant without difficulty.

In other words, nora thinks, slamming herself backward so the guy holding her bashes into the table, they're nerds.  Nerds who are totally out of their league.

She's doing okay by herself, even though she's losing, being pulled by the hair and tied to the chair, but at least one bad guy is down and the other one has a broken nose and the guy that got thrown into the counter looks like they're in pain.  So she's not worried, exactly, but Nora can't pretend that it wasn't a slight relief when one of the windows fell apart and Spider-Man sailed through, landing in the middle of a room with a crouch and taking down all the bad guys in at least five seconds.

"Saved me again, huh?"  Nora says, after she gets done letting out a little scream, after he's rushed over to untie her, after she's standing rubbing at the rope burns on her wrists and noticing all the aching parts of her that will soon be bruises, and the fact that her lip is cut and bleeding all over her shirt.  "Suppose this time I should thank you."

Spider-Man doesn't say anything, just gets a running start and disappears the way he came, leaving Nora standing in the middle of the room all by herself.

 

 

It's always been strange to her, how fast things change.  Like, one moment you're worried that your friend might be a little weird around you because you kissed him like you wanted for all the wrong reasons, and the next second he's barreling up the stairs and finding you in the middle of a crime scene, crying and kicking at one of them.

"Hey, hey, don't do that,"  Peter says, and he wraps his arms around her, pulling her away, and once she sees it- the man's bleeding face, the way he's curled into a ball to protect his stomach, the arm at an odd angle and clearly broken- she starts crying, clinging to him, letting him lead her down the steps and out into the cool night air.  "It's okay,"  He murmurs, soft and soothing and right in her ear, and she wants to ask him how he knew, how he always knows, but can't, because she can't really bring herself to pull her head out of his shoulder.  "This is just shock.  It's a bad scare.  Just deep breaths, alright?"

"How did you know to come?"  She says, when she's finally calmed down.  "I needed someone, and then you came."

"The tower wasn't lit up,"  He says, like that solves everything.  "I knew something must have been wrong."

He knew something was wrong, and then he ran straight into it, barreling up the stairs to find her and save her from whatever bad thing might have been there, taking his chances in this world of aliens and superhumans and bad guys with guns just to get to her.  It's enough to make her start crying again, but she doesn't, just stands up straighter and holds tighter onto his hand, because Thor has just arrived, meaning that the rest of the Avengers won't be far behind.

"You are alright?"  Thor says, and Peter looks positively delighted at this turn of events.  Thor had a hand on her shoulder, and he's clearly checking to see if she is hurt.  "They did not hurt you?"

"No."  This isn't the truth, exactly.  She's sore, for one, and Peter said her lip would need stitches, and she cracked her head so hard on the chair when the man first threw her down into it that she's sure she has a concussion.  And there's also the fact that they had invaded the one place she had thought was safe, one of the safest places in the world for her, and how she would never be able to take it back, never lose that feeling of staring into the darkness without even FRIDAY to help her.  "They didn't hurt me."

"She hurt them, though,"  Peter says, and if she wasn't mistaken, there was something like pride in his voice.  "Pretty badly.  One dude might need a doctor."

"Yes, well."  Thor clapped her shoulder in a way that was probably supposed to be friendly but had her wincing as soon as his back was turned.  "We all have enemies that need defeating."

 

 

She sits there with Peter while the others arrive, trying to look not guilty and not at all in shock when the paramedics and the policemen show up, both of the painted in the ghostly glow from the lights.  The EMTs come over to her straight away, and even though she accepts a blanket, she shakes her head when they tell her to get on the gurney.  "You're not here for me,"  She says, and wonders about that statement.  "A few guys got the crap beat out of them."

Spider-Man hadn't been gentle, and then he had left them alone with her, who was drowning in anger and panic and more than  a little fear.  Nora hadn't been afraid at all when it was happening, but when she was safe, everything came crashing down around her.  It had been that way when the robots attacked too, the crippling fear and anxiety only coming after the fact. 

Peter keeps one arm wrapped around her through all of it.  He stays when Steve comes and crouches in front of her, asking for any detail she can think of, anything they said or that they had done that was out of the ordinary.  He sits when MJ calls her, and then takes the phone to tell her that she's fine, everything turned out okay, Spider-Man saved the day, he would call her in the morning.  And he stays when Natasha runs to her, still in her cocktail dress and high heels, wrapping her in a hug and beginning to yell without taking a breath.

"I told you to hide!"  Natasha says, gesturing down at Nora.  "Not go after them.  That was not hiding."

"You were taking too long,"  Nora murmurs, and she's not sure how clear her words were coming out, because her head was throbbing in painful white hot spikes of pain. "Couldn't let them get in the work shop."

"I know,"  Natasha said, smoothing down Nora's hair and repeating what all the SHEILD officials and police men had told her, the same thing that was on its way to every news station in America.  "You did save the day.  You're a hero, Nora."

 _Hero,_ she thinks, slumping against Peter's side, wishing that she had listened to the paramedics when they said that she was probably hurt and just couldn't feel it.  _What a funny thing to call this._

 

 

Tony gets there last, when the crowd has died down and the sun was starting to come up, stopping so suddenly that he leaves tires marks on his drive way.  He looks uncharacteristically disheveled when he stands up, his sunglasses missing and tie undone, leaving the keys in the ignition.  "Where is she?"  He demands, fighting through a few SHIELD agents that wanted to give him an update.  "Where the hell is my daughter?"

Daughter.

It's the first time he's called her that, first time he gave any indication about whether she was actually family or just another thing he pays the bills for, but here he was, fighting through the crowd and pulling her into a hug.  It was a type of hug she had grown familiar with, the tragedy hug, the one that you do with the people you love after something bad happens just to reassure yourself that they are safe and so are you.  

"Are you alright?"  He says, and this is not how Thor asked it, this was frantic and scared and personal.  And there was something in his eyes, something that told her if she were to say no, he would go up there and finish what Nora had started, just punch and kick until there was nothing left to save.  "Did they hurt you?"

"Head hurts pretty bad,"  She admits, because there's not going to be any way to hide that soon.  "But other than that, I'm fine."

"Should have seen her, Mr. Stark."  Peter says.  Peter, who had backed away to give them space but was now right there again.  "She was really doing fine on her own."

Tony moves his attention away from her just long enough to wrap him in a hug, and she hears him say something that sounds like thank you, but before she could wonder why Peter was being thanked, Nora decides that she would rather just lay down and go to sleep instead.  She compromises by sitting back on the ground and immediately having ten people ask if she was okay.

"It's been a long night,"  Tony says, crouching down in front of her.  He helps her to her feet.  "But everything's okay now.  Everything's okay."

Nora doesn't waste her breath letting him know that people have been telling her that for a while now, and she hasn't seen much evidence to prove it right.

 

 

Tony tells her to pack a bag, that she's staying with MJ until this all dies down.  She doesn't argue, and Peter does most of the packing anyways, and then Thor is driving her through the early morning traffic, chattering on like he's just dropping her off for a sleep over.  

"Were you scared?"  MJ says, in the middle of a news story about what had just happened, the grainy footage of Nora stumbling away from the paramedics.  She looks worse in the photo than she thought she did, like she clearly just came from a fight- shirt ripped, hand raw and burnt (the taser was a prototype), lip streaming blood (Natasha stitched it up), and hair a mess.

"Not at the time."  Nora pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders, wishing that Peter was here.  "But now I'm terrified.  They could be anywhere, you know?  And now they'll be after me."

No one had said it to her face, but they had said it in whispers and rumors that had carried over the sound of the sirens and to her and Peter.  How she had made herself a target, how they would want to make her pay, how this group was more dangerous than they had thought.  

"Don't worry,"  MJ said, jaw set, and this is another thing that Nora has learned to appreciate, that MJ is someone who knows who to fight for the things that matter.  "We'll win in the end.  Even if we have to do it ourselves, we'll stop them, okay?"

It was a ridiculous goal, but it made Nora feel better, finally letting her give in to the drowsiness that had been threatening to drag her into the sleep for hours now.  And when she dreams, she dreams of Spider-Man and her burning hands, and how when he talks, he sounds even more like Peter than he had before, but instead of Nora falling, it is always the Spider-Man who is Peter, tumbling out of a building and onto the pavement below.

When she wakes, she can't remember it, but she can't help but think that there was something from last night -something to do with Peter- that she should have remembered, but can't.

 

 

 

 


	15. Avengers Assemble

She spends a lot of time at MJ's, her ever absent parents reassuring Tony that _no, of course we don't mind, Nora can stay as long as she needs to,_ leaving Nora to waste away on the couch (because the ER doctor said to try not to move for at least a week) with MJ while they watch episode after episode of Law and Order.

MJ is trying her best not to let Nora come into contact with anything that has to do with the events of last week, or the new terrorist group, or Spider-Man, or anything else that might send her into a panic attack.  Still, she can't block out every news alert and radio station that Nora has access to, so she sees it all anyways- how two of the men that broke into her house are in the ICU and unable to speak, how one ate a cyanide pill because apparently this is more hard core than anyone had been expecting, how no one is any closer to catching the bad guys than they were when they first showed up.

"It's going to feel weird not having you here,"  MJ says, throwing Nora's bag into the back of the car and waving off Happy's (who has heard too many of her tirades to argue) offers to help.  "We should be room mates in college or something, I think we'd work well together."

Nora stares, thinking of the idea of going to some university with MJ, eating mac and cheese past midnight and having a dorm room full of more books than clothes.  But the prospect sends another spike of pain through her skull, so she just gives her a weak smile and a hug before crawling into the car beside Peter.

He smiles brightly at her, moving to the side to give her more room, but she just moves towards him, laying her head on his shoulder and ignoring the looks Happy gives her in the mirror.  "Don't move, "  She orders, because Peter was looking vaguely terrified, like he was fighting the urge to jump out the window.  "Just stay."

 

 

He stays for longer than she thought he would, the whole drive up to the Avengers complex and then even when they get there, throwing his bag on the counter and collapsing on the couch like he had been here before.  Maybe he had.  Nora doesn't know what all being Tony's number one intern entails.

"Isn't this a school day?"  Nora knew that it was, because MJ would disappear for a few hours, just long enough to give Nora time to fight through the haze of the medication that she was having to take every morning.  Then she would come back loaded with homework and complaints about Ned and Flash and idiot teachers.  

"Yeah, well..."  Peter shrugged, hopelessly, like she had caught him in a lie.  "Mr. Stark asked me to stay with you until one of the avengers got here."

Nora stares at him.  She's had this feeling before, like Peter was acting as some babysitter or body guard during the times when Tony has to go away for a long while.  It had been nice, when all that meant was that he would keep her company in the tower, but became a bit more concerning when Tony apparently thought he could fight off robbers with guns and members of a terrorist group.  Still, she didn't like the idea of sitting in this big place all alone until someone showed up, just listening to the whir of machinery and the rain hitting against the windows.  "Where does Aunt May think you are?"

"On a business trip with Mr. Stark."  Peter has now moved to the kitchen and found where Wanda keeps her chocolate, talking through a mouthful of the stuff.  "What she doesn't know won't hurt her."

Nora feels a pang of guilt for that, because there's very few things that Peter would lie to his Aunt May about, and she never wanted to be the cause of one of them.  But she also feels a bubble of something else, something warmer, that comes when she thinks that he'd do these things for her- face down an unknown danger, miss school, lie to his Aunt- without blinking.  

"Well, as long as you're here."  She grins, finds the game consoles that are hidden in the back of the cabinet, the ones that are supposedly there to test out the dexterity in Bucky's new and improved metal hand.  "Best out of five?"

 

 

Nora is being held hostage at the Avengers complex.

She supposes that there are worse places to be held at, but she's not even allowed to go outside with Wanda anymore, and without any face to face contact with her friends she's getting a little stir crazy.  Tony had listened to her complain with an unimpressed look on his face, staring her down over the rim of his sunglasses until she finally fell silent.  

"The threat went from yellow to red, kid,"  He had said.  "Can't have you home when I'm not there."

Nora had spent a lot of time wondering how bad red had to be, if yellow included a group of people taking down the finest security around and then trying to take some highly dangerous weapons.  She decided she didn't want to find out, and instead resigned herself to another week at the Avengers complex while this all got sorted out.

"What's going on?"  Nora throws herself down beside Bucky, who looked at her in surprise before shifting away a few inches.  She rolls her eyes, because she's spent enough time this past week bugging him to know that he doesn't like it when people he deems as "breakable" are on the side with his metal arm, like he's going to go back to being a mindless assassin any second now.  

"They're arguing."  Bucky takes a yogurt covered spoon and gestures at the group in front of them, which includes Steve and Tony bent over files, Wanda yelling at Vision, and Clint and Natasha staring grumpily at each other.  Bruce, who had to be dragged here with the promise that this group would not leave him alone just because he decided he wanted to retire, was just staring moodily out the window.

"I gathered that much."  She looks over at him hopefully, because he's the easiest to get information from, since the others seem to have decided that they didn't want to scare her.  This time, though, he just raises his metal side in half and shrug and goes back to his yogurt, like she wasn't sitting there at all.  

They're arguing about the new, still unnamed terrorist group ( _though Nora thinks they should give it a name themselves, just for fun_ ), the same way they have been this entire time Nora has been here.  Today, it's about possible targets, what they're threatening, all of it in really loud voices.  It's much of the same thing, so she lets herself switch between paying attention and needling Bucky to take her out for a drive until Tony and Steve start to argue.

That's always worth watching.

"Tony,"  Steve says, his voice fond and understanding and exasperated all at once.  He drags the file Tony is holding out of his hands, and when he gestures with it to prove a point, Nora can see her name written across the front. Apparently, there are threats now.  Threats against her.  "We'll take care of her, but at the moment, she's not a priority."

"She is _my_ priority."  His voice is too loud, loud enough to make all the others fall silent and have Nora jump.  He's also staring at Steve like this might be Civil War era part two, so Natasha gets up and moves in between them, saying something to Tony in a low, consoling voice.

"Nice to know you're loved, isn't it?"  Bucky says, because Bucky is sort of a mix between a kind older brother and an asshole and likes to say things that don't need to be said.  Neither Nora or Tony had told each other that they even liked each other, but what he just said a few seconds ago was close enough.  

 

 

"You really aren't in any danger, you know."  Natasha pauses in the doorway of her room, and Nora stares at her, because she's in the middle of video chatting with Peter and doesn't want him to know that she's worried.  There's no way that Natasha missed the fact that she was on the phone, but apparently, she doesn't really care.  "They're just all worried."

Bucky stands behind her, nodding supportively, but Nora's pretty sure that he just followed because he likes to be around Natasha rather than wanting to make her feel better.  She thinks that he knows what it feels like to have someone tell you _it's okay, it's fine, everything's going to be better soon_ without any evidence to prove it, and how frustrating it feels.  "I know."  And then, because just saying that would make her feel like a brat, she adds, "Thanks, Nat."

Peter stays quiet until the door closes, his face pale and worried, before bursting out with questions that she can't answer.  "You are okay, aren't you?"  She feels guilty, not for the first time, that she dragged him into this.  He wouldn't have been anywhere near this if they weren't such close friends.  "Because we can work something out if you aren't."

"I'm okay, Peter."  She wishes this wouldn't have happened, mostly because if they hadn't, she would be at home right now and he would be with her and maybe then they could talk about that kiss neither of them wanted to talk about, her first kiss, the one that created a subtle shift between them that Nora is pretty sure is a good thing.  "Really."

 


	16. Guilt

At some point, Peter's going to have to get used to lying to people.

Like, okay, if he was ever going to think about what qualifies as an excuse to lie to everyone you care about, he supposes that getting bit by a radioactive spider and developing super powers is a pretty damn good one.  But he's found that that only works in theory, because in practice it leaves you with an aunt that always has a face pinched with worry and doesn't really trust you anymore, and friends that can only ever half count on you because you might be off saving the world, and a girl that you like but who would really hate you if she found out the truth, because you maybe sort of got her father killed.

"It's going to be fine."  Tony isn't looking at him, he's looking down at the folders spread across the table, sleeves rolled up to his elbows.  He looks more calm and collected than Peter thinks that anyone in his situation had the right to be, but he's also a little stressed, lips pressed into a thin line and fingers trembling just enough to make the paper shake.  "She's safe."

"I know she's safe."  Peter sort of wants to scream, but doesn't, because that would be rude and inappropriate and immature, and Mr. Stark doesn't need to know that his little superhero apprentice is having a break down right when he may need him most.  Especially because he wasn't just worrying about the terrorist group, but also about school, and his friends, and if he's going to get dragged into the Avengers problems again, and Nora, whether Nora is going to be okay, whether she likes him, whether or not she thinks about that kiss as much as he does.

Probably not, but it didn't matter, and anyways, he won't be telling anyone about any of this.

Tony turns to look at him over the rims of his glasses (cause he wears those now, because in his words, getting old is a bitch).  "What's really the matter?  Because you look like you're ready to jump straight out the window just to blow off some steam."  Strange, because Peter was itching to do just that, something to do so he didn't have to sit here and stare across the room at Nora, dealing with the same buzzing nerves that has come ever since the night they kissed.  "Is the sensory overload bothering you again?"

"No,"  Peter bats away the hand that Tony stretches out, shrugging away.  He doesn't want another concerned parent lecture, even though that was sort of becoming a problem, too.  "It's just..."

Just.

Just that maybe sometimes he wishes he really could go back to being the happy neighborhood Spider-Man, because now he sees himself on tv and dreams about throwing that robot into that building every other night, and when he wakes up he's choking on the dust and blood and vomit all over again.  Just that Flash is still a jerk and his friends are still his friends, but he can't help but think that maybe all those idiots at school were right, that he is just a loser and a nerd and all those other things that would make a girl like Nora not want anything to do with a guy like him.  Just that he really likes Nora, and now he feels really guilty because now he keeps thinking about what it feels like to kiss her even though she was only doing it to stop Flash from laughing at him.  Just that he really, really wants to kiss her again, but can't, because he's the reason her father is dead.  

Tony watches him without speaking, and seems to get a lot of that even if Peter would never say it out loud.  "You could tell her."

"I can't."

"She would understand."

"I got her father killed." 

This is the thing they don't talk about, the thing that has him waking up in the middle of the night and pulling away when Nora gets too close, the thing that would kill her if she ever found out.  "No."  And now Tony did reach out for him and Peter wasn't pushing him away, just let himself be pulled into the crushing embrace of someone who loves him, the closest thing to a father figure he has at the moment.  "No, the evil guys killed him, they're responsible for every bad thing that happened that day."

"But I-,"

"But nothing.  You were doing your best."  Tony steps away, and now its the both of them staring at Nora, watching her laugh and smile and shove at Wanda like nothing bad had ever happened to her.  "Nora really cares about you.  The real you, not the one running around shooting webs from his hands.  She won't throw that away over something that wasn't your fault."  Then, when Peter just sort of stares at him, "I mean, she might be real pissed for a while a try to punch you, but she'll get over it."

Peter nods, swallows hard, and then fakes a smile, because Nora was coming over to them.  "You ready to go?"

She has her hand out for him, and he takes it without thinking, because he still lives for those casual touches between them.  He's not ready, not at all, especially when every time he looks after her he's getting this stabbing pain in his stomach, like the guilt he's feeling over everything he's hid from her is actually going to kill him.

 _Saved me again,_ she had said when he swung in to find her doing just fine on her own.  He remembered the heart pounding panic, the terror he felt when he got the call from Tony (he had been right down the road, extra security, just in case), and then how she had stared at him, half surprised and half accusing.  And then how he had to leave her there, because she would not find him comforting.

 _I didn't save you,_ He had wanted to say back, because that was the truth, the only thing he had ever done was take away her home.  _I ruined you._

"Yeah."  His voice cracks, his stupid voice that is too high and soft and that one semi-bad dude thought belonged to a girl.  Just another thing wrong with him.  "Ready when you are."

 


	17. College

They're talking about college.

It's absurd, really, because last year that wasn't even a thought in her head.  Most kids from her old school didn't really care about college, and if they did, they went to the community college twenty minutes away.  A lot of them stayed to work in their family's shops or on the farms or maybe join the gang that they had thought was a good idea when they were younger, but a few lucky ones get out because of athletic or academics.

The lucky ones.

Technically, Nora is one of the lucky ones now.  And now she's listening to Tony offer to take Peter to MIT the next time he stops there, how he's sure they won't have a problem with them tagging along, and Tony could practically garuntee an acceptance letter.

"You think he means it?"  Peter stared after him, still looking a little stunned and starstrucklike he always does when Tony talks to him.  

"Probably."  Nora watched him go, too, and then collapsed down onto the couch.  And also back down onto Peter, because she was using him as a pillow and he hadn't had the heart to push her off yet.  "He's nice like that."

 

 

He really did mean it, Nora finds, because a week later she's hanging out with MJ and Evangeline, getting increasingly more and more excited texts from Peter as the days go one.  She doesn't understand half of them, because he's using scientific jargon that she would need a dictionary to make sense of, but she can tell that he loves it.  

(The part she loves is all the selfies that he drags Tony into, and she can pinpoint the exact moment where Tony stops being reluctant and starts having fun.)

"This has been so amazing,"  Peter tells her later that night, breathless and excited and generally sounding like he just had the time of his life.  "I mean, I spent the whole day with Mr. Stark, and the classes all sound so cool, and I talked to this professor..."

He goes on, long enough that Nora starts to zone out, only coming back when he stops with the rush of words and gets quiet again.  "But what if I don't have what it takes to come here?  I mean,"  She knows what he means, knows that he's at that other school on scholarship and that he probably spent the day surrounded by trust fund kids.  

"You're the smartest person I know.  You're going to be fine."  She rolls over onto her stomach, stares at the picture he had given her for a month ago, the one his Aunt May took and he framed.  It's just the two of them, him bending over her so he can whisper some joke in her ear.  The photo was taken right at the beginning of her laugh.  "You'll run circles around those kids."

"You think so?"

This was quiet Peter, the one she doesn't get to hear very often.  The one that comes to her with his sensory overload and his anxiety and the newest of the awful things that the kids at school come to him.  Nora sort of hates quiet Peter.  "I know so."  She can hear muffled talking in the backround, probably Tony yelling at him to get off the phone before take off so he can buckle up, and stifles a laugh.  "Text me when you get home okay?  So I know you're both safe."

She had made him promise the same thing on his way there, and he had agreed.  She didn't say that the idea of airplanes make her nervous now, and didn't have to, because he had seemed a little nervous at the prospect of flying.

"Okay."  Nora can hear the smile in his voice.  "Night, Nora."

She cradles the phone closer to her, wants to keep him on the line, wishes she was there with them.  "Night, Peter."

 

 

The two of them get back home early, early enough that Peter gives her a quick hug and then immediately falls asleep on the couch, leaving her to shove a cup of coffee across the table at an exhausted looking Tony.  "That kid,"  He starts out menacingly, but doesn't appear too tough because he was smiling fondly in Peter's gerneral direction.  "Never stops talking."

Nora smiles, pours herself a cup of coffee, and collapses down beside him.  "He had so much fun though.  You should have heard him on the phone."

"Yeah, well."  Tony shrugs, quiet as he always is in the face of a compliment, and Nora rolls her eyes.  "He's a good kid."

 

 

Peter wakes up eventually, sitting at the kitchen counter while she makes him pancakes.  (Nora's trying to learn how to cook.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn't.)  "You really should have seen it,"  He mumbles, forcing the words out through a yawn.  "Would have been more fun with you there."

Nora doesn't look at him, just turns her face back to the pancake batter to hide her smile.  "Did you miss me?"

"I always miss you,"  He says, and there is no joking in his face when she turns to look at him.  He's squinting at her like she's too bright to look at, face screwed up as if he's in pain.  "You're my favorite person in the world right now, do you know that?"

Nora grips onto the spoon in her hand she's afraid it might cut into her already scarred palm, then lets out a sigh that sounds more like a hiss.  "Peter,"  She lets the spoon fall onto the counter and crosses the room to get to him.  "What's wrong?"

"I need to talk to you about something.  About something I did.  That we did, sort of, and you're not going to be happy, and I just need you to know-,"  He's doing his thing again, the one where he's nervous so all his words come out in a rush, and Nora is so relieved that she almost starts laughing.  Only Peter would get this upset about something so small, even though it's been the elephant in the room for weeks.

"Peter, relax.   I know."  

"You know?"  His face splits into confusion and then relief, and before he can talk she turns back to the pancakes, the better to hide her expression.

"Of course I know.  Ned showed me the video.  And I don't mind."  He still has a look on his face that didn't exactly fit in this context, but Nora pushes through, afraid that her courage would falter if she waited much longer.  "It was a kiss.  And I'd do it again, if it meant that Flash would stop picking on you."

 _I'd do it again anyway,_ she thinks, but she wouldn't say that out loud.

"The kiss.  Yeah."  He looks disappointed for a moment, then bounces back to how he had been when he sat down, happy and bubbling over with information about MIT.  "That's good.  Great.  Glad we..." Peter raps his knuckles on the table, chews on his lip.  "Glad we got that out of the way."

"Me too,"  Nora says, and even her smile feels like a lie.

 

 

When Tony comes into her room the next day, she's almost entirely convinced he heard her conversation and was coming to give her fatherly advice about it.  But he doesn't, just fiddles with the fidget spinner (it had seemed cool at the time) on her desk and stares at the wall.  "You been thinking about it?"  He says finally, when she's started to wonder if he just wandered in on accident.  "College, I mean?"

She'd never really considered it, never could afford it before so why waste time on the impossible, and she told him so.  "You could now. Afford it, I mean."

She takes a second to think about that, her going to some university and sitting through classes, taking notes while the teacher lectures, going back to a dorm to greet a room mate that looks a little bit like MJ.  But that screeches to a halt just like it always does, because she can't quite picture that yet.  "How?"

Tony draws up short, staring at her over his coffee cup.  "Me, obviously.  If you wanted to go, I'd pay for it."

She thinks about that after he leaves, how easy he said it, how simple, like throwing that amount of money away on her was nothing to him.  And maybe it wasn't.

 _College,_ she thinks, and spends all night looking at pictures of college campuses on her phone, great brick buildings and smiling students and classrooms with more kids than her entire high school back home.  

It's a nice thought.


	18. Wanda's Wisdom

She'd been to parties before, but not ones like this, and Nora was starting to think that maybe she should have stayed home.  Really, she's not supposed to leave the avengers complex unless Wanda or Bucky is with her (Tony's away on some top secret recruiting mission), but Wanda said that a group of bullies was no excuse to miss out on life, especially when her life includes going to a party that a very cute boy invited her to.  "Besides," She had said, waving around her hand, causing glitter to trail from the make up brush she was holding.  "It's not like they're going to be watching every frat house in America in case you show up."

This was a point, the same one that nora had been reaching herself, when she thinks of all the things she's missed just because she's afraid that those same people that sent those hackers to Tony's Tower will send people after her.  And she shouldn't have to do that, miss out on high school and friends and having fun in favor of being locked away like Rapunzel stuck in her tower.  And Nora isn't the type to wait for a prince to show up.

So she's here now, nervously sliding through the front door and into a crowded room.  The music is cranked too loud and the room seems bright and shadowy all at once.  Nora almost turns right back around, because it was too many people in too small of a house, but then a hand closed around her elbow, just enough to let her know that he was there.

"Hey."  He grinned at her, the same way he had yesterday when she stumbled into him at the mall while wearing ridiculously tall high heels.  She and Wanda had just been messing around, seeing who could walk the best, and then he turned the corner straight into her, reaching out to help her keep her balance like he catches swooning girls all the time.  It was a cliché movie meeting, and when she finally looked into his face, he looked like something out of a movie, too- brown eyes, hair that curls up at the end, a half smile that makes it so you can't tell if he's laughing at you or just happy.  _Names Alexander, but you can call me Alex,_ he had said, like he didn't say it all the time and like she wasn't stuttering over every word she forced out.  "I didn't think you were coming."

"Of course I came."  Nora had to shout over the music, leaning into him to be heard.  She's keeping her balance with a hand on his shoulder, and this could be seen as an invitation to something, even if she's not yet sure what she's willing to offer.  "I wouldn't miss up on..."  She waved a hand in the direction behind them, where a chorus of squeals had gone up from the group of girls in the center.  It probably had something to do with the guy in a football jersey.  "All this."

"Right."  His mouth quirked up in that smile again, and even though she had heard warnings about guys with smiles like that and had listened to enough of MJs tirades about frat boys to think twice, she let herself get pulled into him and towards the crowd.  "I'm sure the party is just how you wanted to spend your night."

"I just wanted to see you."  Nora knows that isn't the type of thing she should have said, but he had swooped in to catch her at the store, and then bought her a coke in the cafeteria to make up for him running into her, and then they stayed up all night talking.  "I don't know how long I'm staying."

He smiles a full smiles at her then, one that showed all his teeth and made him look a little less dangerous and a bit more like Peter.  _Don't think about Peter._ Alexander was handing her a cup full of something, probably beer, and she took it even though she had promised she wouldn't drink.  _No Peter or Wanda or MJ or Evangeline tonight.  Don't think about Tony.  Don't think about anything other than this boy who's actually interested in you._

It was a bad idea.  This was a bad idea, but her life was full of bad things right now, and she felt like being young and dumb, just this once, because she never got the chance before.  So when he turns to her and raises his glass in a parody of a toast, she raises hers back, and pretends she likes the taste when she drinks it.

 

 

"You want to dance?"  He has to shout for her to hear, even though they're smashed right beside each other on this crowded couch, her tucked under his arm.  Alex doesn't wait for answer, just draws Nora to her feet and into the small crowd behind them.  They stand there for a moment, her leaning back and him staring down at her, before he grabs her by the arms and tugs her to him.  "I don't bite."  That smile again, the one that makes her nervous for a reason she can't quite understand.  "Promise."

Nora wants to say something back, something funny, something flirty, something adult, but what comes out of her mouth is-, "I can't dance."

He's not upset.  "Yes, you can."  He moves them until they're further away from the crush of people, to where they're so close to the stereo system that she can feel the beat pounding in her fingertips.  He has to lean into talk to her now, shouting into her ear.  "It's easy.  See?"

And it was easy, once she got used to him touching her, his hands on her hips and sometimes other places and Nora not stopping him, the music loud and the people around them even louder.  She thinks that later, when she goes home, she'll think back and try to pinpoint the places he touched and it'll be easy to find because they'll still be warm to the touch.  

"This is nice."  His voice is somehow quiet even in the clamor, and Nora leans in to listen, in and up, and suddenly he's kissing her.  _Peter,_ that little voice in her head thinks, and then, _get away from him,_ MJ's voice pops up, and finally, her own, goes, _this is not what you are supposed to be doing._ She doesn't listen to any of them.  She's tired of listening.  "Isn't it?"

"Yeah."  She lets him kiss her, doesn't pay attention to the people around them or the spilled beer on her arm or his group of friends cat calling from the doorway.  "Very nice."

 

 

She doesn't know how she got here.

Well, Nora knows, but doesn't want to believe it, can't believe she was so naïve, so stupid, that someone so nice could leave her alone in a place like this when he knows that she isn't used to coming to parties like these, when he knows what could happen to a slightly drunk girl in an empty room if there's no one there to watch out for her.  and Nora knows it to, which is why when he had gotten a text saying that someone needs to help his friend into the car, she had wanted to tell him no, to stay, or say that she would go with him.  Or better yet, that it didn't matter, that she was tired and wanted to go home and could he please help her find the contact that had Peter's number because she can't find it on her own.

But she hadn't said no, and she hadn't left.  She had just sat in the quiet and listened to the party downstairs, to the laughter coming from behind the wall, and counted to 1oo, once, twice, and third time, start over and go to two hundred this time.  Then the door had creaked open, the light cutting through the shadows and creeping across the floor until it got to her.  

"Alex?"  It wasn't Alex.  It was some other guy, a friend of Alex's that she had been introduced to at the start of the evening, the one with the floppy hair and dopey smile and who she had referred to as the nice one.  She relaxes a bit, falling back against the pillows and smiling at him. 

"Not Alex,"  He had said, and he was smiling in the same way he did downstairs, warm and relaxing and comfortable.  "Just me.  Want some company?"

And she did.  So she told him so.  And that's where things started to go wrong.

Even though she had heard the stories, heard all the warnings, it still surprised her, how a boy you trusted can go from sweet to scary in a matter of seconds, how they don't pay attention to the signs and don't seem to understand the word no.  She's a little drunk so its easy for him to have her somewhat pinned to the bed, only not really, because part of her shoulder is jabbing into the desk and it's got to be uncomfortable for him, too.  Nora had bent over backwards to get away from him, said no, and this is where it got her, him pawing at her clothes and fumbling at the buttons on her jeans, and it doesn't matter if she yells or screams or cries, because no one would hear her and she knows it.

It reminds her of that night at the gala, with that man who had never heard the word no in his life and how he thought he had the ability to just take, _take and take and take and take_ without asking first, only this time, there would be no Peter to save her.  If Peter were here he would help, he always just seems to know, but Peter isn't here, because she left him behind in favor of a guy who leaves drunk dates alone in dark rooms.  And there's still this guy, his weight on top of her, pressing her down, his breath in her ear, hot and heavy and disgusting, his fingers creeping in around the waist band of her jeans, trying to push them down, down, down.  That's around the time that Nora realizes that no one is coming to save her.

She's reaching out to the side, grasping at the empty air, and her fingers close around something, so she picks it up and slams it into his temple.  "What the hell?"  He lets her go, and she scrambles to her feet, moves to the wall and stays there like a deer in the headlights.  She had hit him with some sort of decorative globe, and a piece of the glass had chipped off, a splinter of it cutting into her palm.  She can feel the warmth where the blood was welling up, and squeezed her hand together to have it cut deeper, hoping that the pain will calm her down enough to get herself out of this situation.  "What'd you do that for?"

This would be the thing she thinks of later, when its dark and she can't sleep and all she can feel is the ghost of his fingers dipping below the waistband, his breath hot on her neck.  She would think of how he looked at her, shocked and hurt and a little bit confused, as if she was some much loved pet that had suddenly reached out and bit him.  Like she was in the wrong.

"I didn't want you to do that."  Nora's thankful that at the very least her words don't come out slurred.  It seems like the panic had shocked her sober.  "I said no."

"Oh, come on."  He gives a little laugh, relieved and annoyed, and reaches for her again.  "We were just having fun. Alex won't mind."

His hands reach out to grab her, and she flinches back so the back of her legs slam against the bed.  She has no where to run, but he doesn't seem to want to touch her again, just content to lean back in the chair and study her, like this was all some interesting development he didn't see coming.  "Don't touch me.  Don't touch me or..."

"Or what?"  He raised an eye at her, and she was pleased to see that he was bleeding a little bit, holding on hand up to the side of his face where she must have caught him.  "What exactly will you do?  Tell Alex?  I hate to break it to you, but he's already moved on by now.  Got some cute little blonde downstairs with him."

Nora stares at him for a moment, and then rushes past him.  He doesn't move to stop her, but the guys in the hall do, laughing, laughing, reaching out for her.  She's dizzy nd has to fight down the urge to throw up, watches the faces loom in and the hands reach out to grab at her, the beating up the music lining up almost perfectly with the pounding in her temples.  It is too hot, too loud, and this was a bad idea, so she rushes down the stairs, bursting into the kitchen for a moment of relief. 

And there was Alex, leaning back against the counter, arms wrapped around a girl that wasn't her.  And she wondered how many other girls he had done this to, drawn them in and had fun with and then abandoned to the wolves that disguised themselves as sheep, how many other girls had to fight their way through a crowded hallway while they choked back their tears. 

Nora wanted to stomp over to him and remind him of who she is.  To tell him that she was the girl who walked away, damn it, and she was Tony Stark's daughter, and she had two friends who would kick his ass for this.  That she could have the Winter Soldier and Black Widow here in seconds, and no one would hear his screams, just like no one heard hers. 

But she doesn't say any of that, because she can't breathe suddenly, too busy thinking of that moment when the light coming in through the door sliced apart the darkness, how she thought it was a friend, and then it turned into horrible things- hands on her that she didn't want, a mouth forcing itself onto hers, her own voice pleading _no, no, no_ into the darkness.  All she does it stand there for a moment, wondering if this is really the person she's turned into, and spins around, letting the screen door slam behind her and comforted by the fact that in the morning, none of them will remember her name.

It'll be like she wasn't even there.

 

 

Nora walks for a while. 

She had always liked to walk when she was upset, but it was a lot safer to do back in her tiny town, when you knew all the back roads and escape routes and the most dangerous person was that one high school drop out on food stamps who was always willing to share his weed with other future high school drop outs.  It's different here, when the cars pass by so close and fast she's half afraid they'll knock her over, and there's a burst of laughter through windows when she passes them, and there's no safe places for her to hide in.

Eventually, she finds a laundromat that's open 24 hours and ducks inside. The blast of warm air is nice and makes her want to cry, even though that's all she seemed to be doing on the walk over.  She stumbles inside, collapses onto a dryer, and tries not to think about the way that boy ha looked at her, how stupid she was, or what Peter was going to say when he found out.

If she ever told him.  Nora wasn't sure she was going to be telling anyone about this.

"Honey?"  There's a thick, gravelly voice coming from the counter, the kind that comes from smoking too many packs of cigarrettes for too many years.  "You alright?"

"Yeah."  She straightens up and forces a smile and wonders how each time she thinks that this is it, this is the worst thing that can happen to her, something worse is always lurking right around the corner.  "Just had a rough night."

"Got someone to call?"  He looks concerned, like someone's grandpa, the kind that takes his grandkids out of the city once a month to take them fishing or to feed the ducks in some park.  He isn't making a move to kick her out or to come closer, so she relaxes, slumping back down onto the dryer.  She doesn't know how much longer she can hold herself upright. 

"Yeah."  She waves her phone around like that's proof.  Nora doesn't want to think about how she loooks right now, with her hair in a tangle and her mascara streaking down her face, walking a little wobbly in shoes that aren't hers.  "Could I..."  She looks around the room, finds it empty except for a college aged girl pounding on a laptop in the corner.  "Could I wait here?  I can pay you, if you want."

She brings out a fistful of crumpled ones from the inside of her jacket pocket, holds it out to him.  He stares at her for a moment, then shakes his head, picking up the his abondoned rag and continuing to wipe down the counter.  "Don't worry about it."  He squints at her from behind the glasses, maybe just noticing the bleeding palm and the pants that aren't really buttoned right.  His mouth works for a moment, like he can't quite make the words come out.  "Take as long as you need."

 

 

She doesn't call anyone right away.  First she just sits in the corner by the window, back against the dryer that she turned on just to hear it hum, watching the cars flash by and the world steadily come back to life.  Nora still has the little globe, so she bats it around the floor, watching the little pieces chip off onto the ground, a sparkling trail.  Her hand is still bleeding, so she fixes that, too, wrapping her palm in toilet paper she stole from the employee bathroom when the man at the counter wasn't looking.

And then she called.

Not Tony.  Tony was over someplace in Europe, anyways, but she didn't think she could make herself tell him what happened if she heard his voice.  Not when it only happened because it broke his rules, and not when she felt so stupid, and ashamed, and sort of just wanted someone to promise that things were going to be okay, even if she didn't think they would be.  So she picks someone else.

He's in the middle of a laugh when he answers, and the pang of guilt hits her right in the stomach.  "Yeah?"

"Don't tell anyone."  It's the only thing she says, and then she's crying into the phone, sobbing and choing on her words as she makes him swear that he'll keep it all a secret, just for a little while.  "Please don't tell anyone, Bucky."

"It's alright.  Everything's going to be fine."  She can hear him making excuses on the other end, in a voice so casual no one could tell something was wrong.  And then he was back, his voice low and reassurng in her ear.  "Just tell me where you are, okay? Tell me where, and I'll come and get you."

She does, watching the sun rise up through the morning fog, trying not to listen as the man at the counter explain to the three kids on the morning crew why she's huddled in the corner with blood on her palms and chips of glass at her feet.  "Just hurry up, okay?"  She presses her hand down onto one of the pieces, hears the tiny rip as it cuts through the toilet paper and presses into her skin.  It's the same hand she had burned that day the city fell away. 

"I'm on my way."  He's incredibly calm, though she doens't know why he wouldn't be.  "Just hang on, okay?"

_Just hang on._

She tries, but it still feels like she let go.

 


	19. The Mistakes We Make

When Bucky found her, she was curled up between the wall and a washing machine, clutching that broken globe in her hands and crying into her shoulder.  And when he touched her, she screamed.

"It's okay."  Sometimes she can forget how strong the people she lives with are, but not now, when he reaches that metal arm out to curl around her and lift her towards him.  Nora thinks she might be crying, or maybe just whimpering, clutching at his shirt once he finally pulls her out of the shadows.  Everything is too bright and too loud, but Bucky is familiar, so she just clings to him and cries.  "Everything's okay now, okay?  Everything's going to be okay."

It takes her a while to calm down, and even after that, the only thing he can get out of her is that she doesn't want to go home, not yet.  So he takes her out to a diner a block away from the complex, where he orders her a mountain of pancakes that she doesn't touch and coffee that she holds in her hand until it goes cold.

"You know,"  He reaches out to pull her plate towards him (with his real hand, not the metal, he never uses the metal around her).  "When I first moved back, this is where Steve would take me when I started to freak out.  He'd order me pancakes, and then he'd just talk until I told him to shut the hell up."  She doesn't answer, just pokes at the ice cubes in his water with a fork, ignoring the look he gives her.  "And it didn't make things better.  But sometimes you need a break between the bad things and the being okay, where you don't talk and everyone just leaves you alone.  And that's fine.  But you're going to have to tell me what happened before we get back to the tower."

Nora doesn't say anything.  She doesn't know how to say it, because it's not like anything really happened, and it was the almsot that kept stopping her.  Like, something almost happened but it didn't so I shouldn't be this upsetting but it is, and it was my fault, and the guy didn't think there was anything wrong with what he was doing, and, and, and....   She's crying again, but doesn't notice until Bucky reaches out to cover her hand with his. This time, she doesn't flinch.  "Whatever happened, we can deal with it, alright?"  He looks scared for her, like he's got no idea what's going on.  Nora remembers suddenly that Tony said Bucky doesn't leave the complex much, won't leave without one of the team with him.  It would have taken a lot for him to come out here tonight.  To come out here to get her.  "We're going to take care of it."

He's spent a lot of his life taking care of things for people.  Doing people's dirty work, and cleaning up their messes.  And here he is, willing to take one more problem on his shoulders.  "I went to a party."  Her voice is dull, monotone, and when she breathes, its more of a stutter than a sigh.  "I went to a party because a boy invited me to it.  And I wasn't supposed to go, I knew that, but.."  People were staring at her, but she kept going, focusing on Bucky's eyes on her face and his promise of everything being okay.  "And we went up to his room, and we didn't do anything, really, nothing bad, but then he left, and someone else came in, and..."

She's really crying now, just choking on her words, suddenly very thankful she didn't eat those pancakes, because as soon as she started remembering the breath on her neck and the hands on her hips and the laughter when she finally made it out, she feels sick again.  But there's also Bucky crouching in front of her, pulling her to him, metal arm wrapped around her and real hand stroking her hair, never mind all the people watching.  "I'm sorry."  This was pathetic, it was horrible, it was chest heaving and nose running and words pouring out of her without making sense.  "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, I'm sorry."

"You're okay.  It's okay.  Everything's going to be okay."  And then, the thing she needed to hear more than anything, "This wasn't your fault.  Okay?  You need to know it wasn't your fault."

She says okay, but Nora isn't sure she believes it.

 

 

When she calmed down, Bucky had taken her back to the house.  They sat in the garage for a little bit, neither of them responding to Jarvis, before Bucky turned to her with something like pity in his eyes.  "You know I have to call Tony, right?"

Nora sighed.  She knew, of course she knew, she knew that last night when she was huddled in a dity laundromat.  But she just shakes her head and hops out of the car, patting the hood in a way she hopes Bucky knows means thank you.  "Better you than me."

She makes it to her room without seeing anyone, and throws herself onto the bed with all the lights off, waiting for the tears to come.  But they don't, just the images replaying on the back of her eye lids every time she tried to sleep, so she stayed awake, draining an entire coffee pot and trying to stop the shaking in her hands. 

 

 

Part of her didn't want to see Tony.  The other part of her thought it might make her feel better.  She doesn't really know which side of her was right because Tony never came home.  She got Pepper instead.

"Tony wanted to come home."  Nora had heard her coming, but the voice still made her jump.  "Shield wouldn't let him leave, not with everything that's going on."  Pepper still has her heels and suit on, which meant that she probably came straight from a meeting.  Nora didnt think it was possible to feel worse, but she does now that she knows how many people had to rearrange their schedules for her. 

"That's okay."  Nora tries to make it sound like it really is okay, and not like she's disappointed.  "I'm fine."

"You're not."  Pepper came around the side of the bed so she could look Nora in the face.  nora looks away, but she can feel the matress dip when she sits down.  "Bucky told me what happened."

Nora opened her mouth, once, twice, but all she felt was that tightening in her stomach, the lump building in her throat, and the panic setting in, making it hard to breathe.  "I'm sorry."  She cannot stop the tears that leak out, and squeezes her eyes shut to stop them from coming.  It doesn't work.  "I knew I wasn't supposed to leave, but I..."

"It's okay."  Pepper's hand on her was gentle, and Nora gave herself another moment of pretending to be fine before turning into her, burying her head in her stomach and letting Pepper wrap her arms around her.  "You're okay.  No one's mad at you.  It's okay."

It's not okay, and Nora knows it.  She's heard that too many times, knows its always going to be a lie.  "It's not."  She chokes out the words, and then there's another sob and Pepper holding her tighter, suprisngly strong for such a small frame.  "Nothing is ever, ever okay.  Why is nothing ever okay?"

"I don't know."  She was rocking back and forth, and Nora had no idea that it felt like this, to be held like this by someone who takes care of you, like a mom should.  She didn't ever get the chacne to find out, and it seems awful that this is what it takes for her to find out.  "I don't know why.  I wish it could be."

Me too, Nora thinks, staring out the window, thinking of that freefall and Spiderman tell her to take his hand and hold tight, and wishing for the first time since that day that she had just let go instead.

 

 

They all try to make it better in their own way.

Pepper takes her out for breakfast and then shopping, and Nora doesn't have the heart to tell her that everything she eats makes her sick and that walkng through the store is too much, that even unfamiliar fabric on her skin makes her want to scream.

Wanda says sorry a million times, even if it's never out loud, having the two of them watch all of Nora's favorite movies and listen to her favorite music, do all the best friend things that Nora wanted to do but Wanda always said were lame.  Nora doensn't know how to explain to her that even if she's been pointing the blame towards a lot of different people these last couple days, not once did she consider blaming Wanda.

Sam keeps offering to talk with her, or if she didn't feel comfortable talking to him, then at least he could take her down to the VA with him one day and send her to sit with one of his old friends, long enough for coffee and a donut, just to see if it helps.  She tells him no, but he sneaks her all these pamphlets about PTSD and healthy coping mechanisms for panic disorders, anyways.   

Rhodey's the only one who asks her about the guy and if she wants to press charges, brings up whether or not she needs to go see a doctor, offers to take care of everything.  She just keeps saying no, _no I don't want to eat, no I don't want to talk, I don't want to, I don't want to, I just don't want to think about it please just let me bury it even if that itsn't healthy._

Clint takes her out to shoot, and she has surprsingly good aim.  She takes the globe out into the yard and has him blast it with his arrow, and all the glass shatters, the pieces raining down around them.  It feels a bit like letting go, but not quite. 

Steve just comes and sits with her, drawing in his sketch book or going over paper work, sometimes baking her things that she only halfheartedly eats, but he seems proud of her even if she just takes a bite.  Bucky's always there, too, ready for a movie or to talk, for screams or silence, and even though he never forces her to, he's the only one he can really make her do the things taht allow her to feel human again, like sleeping and eating and taking a shower.

Natasha teaches her how to fight, with fists and knives and everything else.  Nora throws herself into it with enough force that she comes away with bruises, but she likes this best.  _There will always be bad things,_ Natasha tells her, when she gets tired enough to collapse to the ground and cry.  _Sometimes we're our own bad things. But knowing how to do this helps_

She still hasn't talked to Tony.  He hasn't come home.

 

 

Peter and MJ come to take her home.

Nora didn' realize how much she missed them until just then, when she climbs into the backseat of MJ's environmentally friendly truck ( _one of Tony's designs_ ) and demands that she gets to control the music.  MJ and Peter exchange glances, but don't say anything, just let her reach forward and fiddle with the radio.

They don't talk about anything important until they get home, and even then Nora is trying to get out of there as fast as she can, blurtng out thank you's and waving away MJ's offers to stay.  But before she can gather her bags out of the bed, MJ is already there and wrapping her in a hug

She smells like cinnamon.  It's familiar, like home, the safe scent that calmed her down in the week after New Year's.  Nora breathes it in. "This is not your fault."  MJ grips onto her hands, tightly, and there is no hint of laughter in her eyes when she speaks.  "Nothing that happened.  It wasn't because of anything you did, or anything about who you are, it was just about that guy and what he wanted, and him thinking he could get it.  You did nothing wrong, and I will be here to remind you of that as many times as you need me to."

Nora can't say thank you, but she thinks MJ gets it.  And when it's Peter's turn to get out and say his piece, she can't say anything at all, just lets him hug her and thinks that she doesn't deserve it. 

"I'm sorry."  She's so tired at apologies, but its all she seems to be good at lately.  "I'm sorry I went."

Peter nods, a muscle in his jaw jumping when he does.  She knows that he gets what she's apologizing for, about the odd sense of betrayal she's felt since she had bumped into Alex, and she also knows that this is him telling her that its okay.  "I would have killed him."

Nora wants to laugh, but there's something in his eyes that makes her think that he woud have, if he had been there.  "I would have let you."

Peter nods, and she reaches out to squeeze his hand one last time before they leave her alone. 

 

 

She had made it three feet into the door before she forgot why she was even there, just crumpling to the ground and deciding to sleep right there.  And when she woke up, Nora decided to order a punching bag, which is why she and Evangeline were trying to hang it up in the corner of Tony's workshop that Nora had taken over.

"Remind me why we're doing this again?"  Evangeline hadn't stopped cussing this whole time they hauled it over, and it got worse as she tried to hoist the giant punching bag up onto the metal hook.  They were both out of breath and sweating, and probably should have taken a break after they managed to bring it down the stairs, but Nora had made her keep going. 

"Because the next time a boy treats me like something he just expects to be able to have, like I'm just some _thing,_ "  Nora lets her nails bite into her palm, right where the glass had cut into it, and tries to forget what Sam had told her about the dangers of forming an unhealthy coping mechanism.  "I'm going to kill them."

Evangeline pauses, blinks, and then shrugs.  The rest of the afternoon, she's quite, but the day after that she brings over a can of pepper spray and a pocket knife with a sparkly handle, claming they belong in the category of self defense 101.

 

 

When Tony does come home, Nora doesn't hear him.  She's down in the workshop, with the radio turned up, trying her best to beat up the punching bag, wishing she was Natasha or Steve or Bucky and that this wouldn't be hard for her, that she could blast through people and everyone in the world would look at her and know that she is not to be messed with. Nora's working on being tough, but at the moment she's just a scared tenage girl who wants to be left alone, so when Tony catches ahold of the punching bag and pulls it away, she screams.

"Hey."  His voice is low, soothing, and the music falls away, the sudden silence louder than the bass had been.  "It's just me."

Nora stared, panting.  She'd spent a long time thinking of things to say, but now that he was acually here in front of her, she can't remember any of them.  "You're back."

"I'm back."  He gives a soft, sad smile, and looks like he has to restrain himself from reaching out to her.  "I'm sorry it took me so long."

"It's not a big deal."  She turns away from him, chugs an entire water bottle and starts on another, braces her hand on the workshop table just so she doesn't have to look at him.  "I'm fine.  Really.  I just needed..."

"You needed me to be here."  He sounds incredibly close to tears, his voice tight, and Nora thinks that if there is anything in the world that coul ruin her, it would be making Tony cry.  "You needed me and I wasn't here."

"It was my fault."  She shrugged, and hoped he could tell how she desperately needed him to tell her that it wasn't her fault, that nothing about this was her fault, and that he didn't blame her, and that it wasn't stupid for her to be this upset.  "I shouldn't have gone."

Nora doesn't realize she's crying until she feels her shoulders shake, and by then he's turning her around, putting his hands on her shoulders and making her look him in the eye.  "What happened that night was not your fault.  None of it.  And if you're worried about me being angry, I'm not."

"But I left."  Nora couldn't quite shake the feeling that he was going to send her away at any moment, that any slip up could be the last straw that has her sent off to some group home who knows where.  "You told me not to and I left."

"You were being a kid.  Kids do things  like that all the time.  Didn't you hear the stories of everyting I've done?"  He was wiping at her tears.  "You did something that kids do, and someone else did a bad thing that was in no way your fault.  And maybe I would have been mad, but mostly, I'm just glad you're okay."  She's crying, just little sniffles, even though Nora would have sworn that she ran out of tears way before this.   "I love you, kiddo.  And no matter what you do, no matter how mad I get, nothing's going to change that."

Nora doesn't say it back, just cries harder and hugs him a little tighter.  She hopes he understands, and from the way he keeps holding her, Nora thinks he does.  And when Tony tells her, later, that things are going to be okay, she can almsot believe it.

 


	20. Tony

He's had the adoption papers for a week now, shoved down in the back of the desk drawer.  Tony knows that this should be easy, as simple as signing his name on a few dotted lines and hiring someone to sort through the legal jargon.  He wants to have it completed more than anything, to have something officially tie him and Nora together as parent and guardian, but something keeps holding him back.  Something like Pepper, and her unwavering insistence that he _think this through._

"This is a big deal, Tony.  This isn't... this isn't just.."  She was searching for words, exasperated, and he didn't like that, could feel the panic bubble up in his chest when she turns away from him, because he is still so terrified that after everything, she might walk away from him again.  He doesn't think he could take it if one more person walked away.  For the first time he started to consider that she might not have wanted this, or had thought that this was going to be one of his flights of fancy that would have gone away, and now comes the moment when she might make him choose.  Pepper or Nora.  Nora or Pepper.  He already knows, will have the answer set in stone as soon as he writes his name down on the dotted line and sends it back to the adoption lawyer.  "This isn't just clearing out a room and buying a bunch of stuff.  This is about being a _parent._ Do you know how to do that, Tony?"

He didn't say anything, and she let the file in her hand fall to the table with a smack, the noise somehow showing her frustration more than her words.  This had been one of the problems she wanted them to work through, he remembered, the communication.   Tony walks toward her and then stops right before reaching out to her, because then she might see how his hands are shaking, and he does not want that, does not want to give her one more reason to leave.  She sees it anyway, and closes the distance between them, pulls him closer.  "Just talk to Nora, okay?  You can't make this decision on your own."  Pepper can't see his face, can't see the flinch or the worry lines or the pure exhaustion that crashes over him when he least expects it, but it still seems like she stood up straighter, bearing more of their weight.  "This is her life you're changing, you know."

 

He had thought Pepper was being unfair, when she said that he didn't know what it meant to be a parent.  He had done the lecturing and the grounding and the helping with homework, the playing doctor and chaperoning friends and giving home cooked meals, had set up college funds and made her think about the future.  He sits down with her, listens to her, tries to fill up the gaps that his father's mistakes had left in him, vows not to make the same mistake with her.  But then he gets the call from Bucky, the one that comes through an emergency line in the middle of the night, and he realizes that he didn't understand what being a parent meant, not really.

Being a parent means loving someone with every fiber of your being, and then feeling your entire world crumble when you hear they might have been hurt, have every part of you flooded with fear and anger and worry and the thought that you just need to get to them, right then, never mind the consequences, and god help anyone who might get in your way.

"She's alright.  I don't think she's hurt.  She sounded- she sounded pretty shaken up."  Bucky's voice came in on the other end of the phone, cutting through the rising crescendo of static that must have only existed in Tony's head.  The men around him (high up government officials, important people, in this room that technically didn't exist and he can't leave without permission) are muttering, equal parts angry and concerned.  "I can handle this.  I can handle whatever this is."

"I'll be there as soon as I can."  Tony knows that this is a lie even as he says, and the faces looking back at him tell him that they know it, too.  He will not be allowed to leave, will not want to leave, cannot leave until a solution has been found, no matter what it happening with Nora, no matter how much pain she is in or how angry she will be in.  Sometimes, its just not an option, not when there is so much at stake and you are the only one who can save it.  "Tell her we can fix whatever it is, okay?  Tell her that's its going to be fine, and I'll take care of it."

 

 

He was imagining trouble with police.  Underage drinking, drugs, breaking curfew, or just being rowdy at a party and having the cops called.    He was angry for a moment, about her leaving, but then realized that that was what kids did, they screwed up sometimes and the adults had to be there to handle the fall out.  That's what it meant to be a parent, he reasoned with himself, you're there for the mistakes and the clean up.

And then he got the text from Natasha, the one that shouldn't have been able to come through and was illegal for her to send, telling him to come home.  And then he was thinking, hospital and broken bones, and maybe hurting someone else, a car crash, or maybe she was out with Peter and something happened, a bad guy attacked and Peter got hurt?  Or maybe she was with MJ at one of her protests and something went wrong, the police or the crowd or both reacted badly, she was hurt and there was a lawsuit pending, something?  Which is around the time it stopped being something they could deal with when they got home to something that was bad, something that was _wrong,_ and something that would require him to go home right this instant, where he could look her in the eye and tell her everything was going to be fine.

That's the thing about being a parent: sometimes you have to drop everything and run, sometimes your mind spins off and imagines the worst, and the only way you can take a deep breath again is if you see them with your own eyes and prove to yourself that they're okay. 

"Get out of my way."  He says it through gritted teeth, wishing he had brought the suit with him.  there is a bodyguard blocking the door, and he thinks of the times when he was younger and could make them move just with a smile and a promise.  But now there are responsibilities at his back and a hand on his shoulder, calming him, easing him back into my room.  "My daughter needs me, I'm leaving."

The hand on his shoulder belonged to a doctor, a man a foot shorter with him and in glasses so thick it warped the features of his face, like the eyes of a dragon fly.  "You care about your daughter.  We all have things we care about.  And this thing with her- this pain- is temporary."  His accent was thick, smoothing the words down, and it made Tony pause to take a breath, allowing him to turn back to the board and look at all the logical targets, the people that the new terrorist group would be after.  One of them was Nora.  "You leave, she stays in danger.  You stay, we solve this, and she's free to walk around without a target painted on her back."  The man smiles, nods, and leads him back to the chair without Tony even realizing he had agreed to do so.  "You stay a little longer, yes?"

Sometimes being a parent means being a disappointment, means swallowing down the worry and trusting in the faith you have in the people around you, doing the best you can from one moment to the next, hoping that its the right choice, and never really knowing when you make the wrong one.

 

 

He doesn't hear the story until days later, until there is a battle plan made and steps already put into place, the terrorist group now something of the past, the full force of the United States and its allies turned towards them.  Tony doesn't have to worry about her, not anymore, not in the sense of that she might be kidnapped and tortured at any moment.  He just have to deal with the old worry, and the old pain, the one he doesn't really understand and gets a phone call from Pepper.

"He roughed her up a bit."  Her voice was thick on the other end of the phone, the sound of someone struggling to keep their composure.  "But he didn't- he didn't really do anything, not really."

No one would say the word to him, but he could imagine it, had seen enough of it during his own stays at parties ot know what might happen to a drunk girl who puts her trust in the wrong people, how the wolves lurk in the shadows to wait for the one sheep that separates themselves from the rest of the flock.  And how they pounce when they get her alone, only this time it is not some girl he would hear about from a friend of a friend, it was Nora, Nora who had to do this on her own. 

She had been probably expecting him to come home, he realized.  Had probably been waiting for him, wondering what to do, what to say, hoping that he could make it better.  And then he had just stayed, put his work before her like his father always did to him, only this was so much worse, so much more unforgiveable.  Maybe Pepper was right- he has no idea what it means to be a parent.

When he did get home, he found her kicking into a punching bag, hitting with fists and feet and everything else, the music blasting.  It is so similar to what he does when he can't handle the memories that it almost makes him laugh, but then he wants to cry instead.  He doesn't though- if he knows one thing about parenting, its that they are never the ones who get to cry.

"You're going to be okay."  He tells her.  He says it a lot during those first few days- right when he got home, that night when he finds her staring at a blank tv at three in the morning, two days from then when she breaks down crying in the middle of doing her homework.  Nora does not seem angry at him, but the guilt for not being there always threatens to swallow him up, even as he tries his best to make up for it.  "Everything's going to be okay."

 

 

He avoids talking, messing with screws and wires and different pieces of the metal, trying to forget that this is Bucky.  Part of him finds it weird that he was doing this with him, working to fix tht hunk of metal that HYDRA had attached to him without thought of the pain they were causing, but the other part knows that in some twisted way Tony considers this a form of repayment. 

Bucky wasn't talking either.  Tony supposes that he wouldn't want to break the silence.  They should, after all, hate each other, seeing that Tony had actually watched him squeeze the life out of his mother and break his father into pieces.  (He knows that he was brainwashed, knows it, had told himself that over and over and over.)  And then there was the whole thing about how half his team turned on Tony, all for this man.   He had thought he was okay with it, or if not okay, at least able to accept it, because he knows a thing or two about having disaster fall from your fingertips even when you didn't know it was happening.  And he had told himself that this would be fine, he could have him be part of the avengers and let him stay in the house Tony had built for them, just as long as he didn't have to see them.

Yet here they were, at Tony's request, with Bucky staring at the wall and Tony working on the arm, trying to fix it and muttering apologies whenever Bucky gave out a hiss of pain.  He had decided to do this a week ago, when he had walked in on Nora talking to Bucky on the phone, assuring him that she was okay and would call if she needed to talk, or just hang out, and thanking him for everything he did.  And Tony wanted to thank him to, to find someone to repay this debt that he could never get rid of, because this man in front of him was the reason Nora was safe.

"You didn't have to do this."  Bucky says when it's done, flexing the fingers, marveling the fact that he could feel, now.  "I didn't want you to go to all the trouble."

The unspoken things are between them, about Siberia and Tony's parents, about Steve and Sam and everyone else, about all the pain Bucky went thoruhg and all the hassle Tony went through to get the charges cleared, and then the fact that they never talked about any of it, never so much as said hello to one another, all of the bad things staring them right in the face.  And Tony was done with bad things, so he stuck out his own hand, one of the few handshakes he has given for the past few years ( _he doesn't like to be handed things_ ).  Bucky stares at him, then takes.

"I do."  A pause.  Then, "Thank you. For what you did for Nora."

"It wasn't anything-,"  He was doing the Steve thing, the thing where you do something great and then pretend that it was nothing special, the aw shucks routine that Tony never could manage.

"No. It was everything."  He wanted to say more but swallowed it down. There was no need- Tony could feel the tension melting and the friendship forming, the feel of the handshake something like forgiveness.  "Thank you for taking care of my daughter."

Bucky nodded, decisive, a soldier in spite of it all.  "Of course, sir."

Tony grinned at that.  "Call me Tony."

 

 

 

"I've got adoption papers ready.  I can sign them anytime."  He doesn't know why he's bringing it up now, at all times, during the most mundane evening.  He'd been talking on the phone a second before, watching her do homework, her foot tap-tap-tapping, a habit she'd picked up since that night at the party, like all her nervous energy was trying to find a way to get out.  "If you want me too, I mean."

He is terrified that she will say no.  This, he realizes, is what had stopped him, the fear that she is unhappy here.  But she's looking at him with a real smile on her face, looking like she's not quite trusting what he's telling her.  "You mean, like, to adopt me?  As in me be your kid?"  She pauses, kicks out at the counter.  "Officially?"

Tony smiles, and wonders why he had waited so long.  A piece of paper doesn't make you a parent, anyway.  "Officially.  Finally.  Non-refundable."

She doesn't answer, then gets up to hug him, a gesture that surprised them both.  "I'd like that a lot."

 

 

"I'm going to adopt her.  No more fostering.  No more wondering if they could take her away, or if she could decide to leave.  She's my kid now.  Would be even if I didn't sign the papers." 

He had a whole speech prepared, but that's all he could get out.  Pepper stares over at him from her spot in the bathroom doorway, slowly setting down her hair brush before coming to join him on the bed.  "You're sure about this?"

"More sure of anything in my entire life.  And if you don't-"  He doesn't know how to phrase his next question, the only thing that had caused him to hesitate during the whole ideal.  How to tell her that if she doesn't want this, want him now that there is one more person added to the equation, he understands, but that doesn't change the decision he's made.  "If you don't want to, to be a mom, or to be like, responsible for her, or with me now that I'm with her, then I get that, but, but that doesn't- that doesn't change what I'm doing."

"Of course I still want you.  I love Nora."  She crawls closer, and he's reminded fiercely of why he loves her.  "And I love you.  So much."

They don't talk for a while, but when they do, its quiet, the two of them accepting that something is shifting between them, something that will hopefully turn a good thing into something better.  "You think you're ready for this?"

She had already said that Tony was a good parent, that she supports this, that she thinks he thought this through.  He doesn't take offense to this question, feels no panic clawing its way up his throat.  He knows the answer.  "No."  He smiles at her, a shadow of his old self.  "But is anybody ever ready to be a dad?"

 

 

He digs the file out from his desk, stared down at it for a while, turning the pen over in his hands.  Tony had signed a lot of things in his life, never bothering to read it, just taking other people's words for what they said and what they meant and what the consequences might be.  The old Tony Stark never gave a thought to the consequences, but the new Tony Stark was a man who thought twice before signing every dotted line.

This time, he doesn't need to think twice, just scribbles down his name and hands it over to the lawyer he hired, confident that in this one thing, he was making the right choice.

 


	21. Pepper Potts

She's down in the workshop again.

Nora isn't really sure if Tony wanted her there, but she came anyways, curling up on the couch with a cup of coffee clutched in her hands.  She's not going to drink it (the taste has always been too bitter for her) but she likes the warmth of it, so hot that it's almost scalding her palms as she sits there.

"Don't you have something better to do?"  He got stains all over his shirt, and oil staining the lines of his palms, but Tony looks happiest like this.  He also looks worried.  Nora knows that it used to be the nightmares that would force her out of bed and down here to him, to cover up her fear with the sounds of the music and the metal.  She would take the nightmares tonight- now she just can't sleep at all.  "Watch videos of kittens on youtube?  Call Peter?  Or, you know, sleep?"

Nora doesn't answer the question.  She never does, because they sound suspiciously like openings to a conversation that might turn into a talk about the possibility of therapists and _if she's okay,_ about PTSD and residual trauma and how there's nothing wrong with asking for help.  Nora has had enough of those conversations.  MJ is an expert at having them.

Instead, she slumps sideways on the couch, a non verbal sign that she would at least try to sleep while she's down here.  She's finding it easier to sleep in the light and the noise, where nothing can be lurking in the shadows to surprise her, and where Tony is only an arms length away.  ( _She never sleeps alone now.  She sleeps in the car with Happy, or goes to MJ's house just to take a nap on her couch, or falls asleep in Peter's arms when they watch a movie, but never alone, not when memories flash behind her eye lids and every stray touch against her skin reminds her of something awful.  Other people quiet it.  Rhodey tells her that this doesn't mean she's crazy, but Nora thinks he's lying.)_

"When are you going to propose to Pepper?"  

Tony's hand slipped, the wrench falling off the metal and down into the wood of his desk, cutting through it.  They both stared at it for a moment, ignoring the muffled curse that she's not supposed to have heard (he treats her like she's twenty sometimes, and ten others), and then he spins around, pointing the wrench in her direction.  

He's avoiding looking at her, and Nora thinks that maybe she should tak pity on him and pretend that they never had this conversation.  Tony loves Pepper, and Pepper loves Tony, and maybe that should be the end of it.  But this topic provides distraction, an that's really what Nora comes down here for, to find some way to leave the memories behind.  To find something that won't make her think of a floor tilting or a boy smiling or hands digging into her skin hard enough to bruise.

(They did bruise.  She spent an afternoon standing in front of her mirror and placing her hands over the places where the fingertips were, trying to cover them up, but she couldn't, because her hands weren't big enough.)

"What do you mean, when am I going to propose to Pepper?"

"Like, when are you going to ask her to marry you?"  She pulls herself to her feet and the room spins, a troubling occurrence that's been happening more and more these past few days.  One doctor says its stress.  The others say its from head trauma.  Peter just says its because she needs sleep and feeds her chocolate.  "Happy told me you have the ring."

"He told you that?"  The wrench falls to the ground, and it was still just the two of them staring at each other across the work shop.  "Listen, kid, I.."

"You love her, don't you?"  

"Of course I love her, what kind of a question is that?"  He looks old in this light, al the lines of his face thrown into sharp relief.  He doesn't look like someone who should be going off to fight villains and carry the weight of other people's burdens on his shoulders.  For a moment, it makes her sad, but then he plucks at the old band shirt he's wearing and picks up the wrench and he looks fine again, like Nora had just been imagining it.  "It'll happen when it's meant to happen. We've got a good thing going."

She heard the things he didn't say.  It's the stuff she fills in from what she's watched and what she's heard, tabloid gossip she stumbled upon and whispered conversations she really shouldn't have been a part of.  Things like how bad things got before, how much he loves her, how scared he is of loving someone, and how scared she is to watch him leave every time for  battle and knowing that even when he promises to stop, he never will.  How Tony is terrified that she's going to leave him behind and that would hurt him more than never really having her at all, and how after all this time, after everything he's done for everyone, the guilt is still pressing down on his shoulders, making him feel like he's not really worth it.  Nora doesn't want to talk anymore, not when it makes him so sad, and not when it turns Tony into just another thing she has to worry about.

(Sometimes, when she thinks about things like this, Nora wishes that he had left her alone after the fall, when she could have stayed alone and with only Eden to worry about.  It might have been easier.)

"I was just wondering."   Nora tried to make it casual again, and went back to her spot on the couch.  The weight was off her chest now, and it made her feel like she could really breathe.  She slumped back into the cushions and pressed her hand against the coffee mug one last time, pulling it away only when she couldn't stand it any longer.  "Do I get to be a bridesmaid?"

"We'll see,"  Tony was smiling at her, though she couldn't really see him through the haze of sleep that was coming over her, pulling her down into the darkness.  There would not be dreams- Dr Banner's prescription made sure of that.  

He turned back to the engine in front of him, smiling.  Nora thinks that this is what his life should have been, just a mechanic in a tiny town with people who cared about him, where he wouldn't have to do things like take care of a group of psychotic superheroes and fly a nuclear bomb into space.  Part of her wonders if he would have been happier, then, or if some people are just destined for pain, no matter where they end up.


	22. Prom

Once, when she was twelve, she got mad and dumped all her dad's alcohol down the sink. 

Nora kept telling herself that this is what people do, when they're trying to help someone, that sometimes you have to make the choices that they aren't strong enough to make themselves.  She wasn't thinking about how he would come home and scream, and how his hand would flash out at her and she would flinch away.  She wasn't thinking that he would throw all the bottles to the ground with one sweep of his arm, and how loud the crash would be when they hit the floor.  She had thought that when he saw what she had done, some part of his mind would snap open to the truth and realize what he had done to the two of them, and he would suddenly become the father she's always wanted, and he would promise never to leave her again.  (Not that he ever left for real, he was just down the road at the bar if she needed to find him, but the house still felt so lonely even when he was in it.)

What actually happened is that he yelled, and then he got real quiet, looking around at the mess he made.  Then he left, leaving her to sweep up the glass ( _she tried to use her hands, it sliced her palms open, she put herself back together with neon colored band aids)_ and walked the whole two miles down to the liquor store in the rain.  The money came out of her allowance, which was actually just the money she used to buy lunch, so for the next to weeks Eva shared her peanut butter sandwiches with her and everyone pretended that nothing was wrong.

Nora remembered that night mostly because of the hand reaching out to her and the glass cutting into her skin, but she also remembered that when she rummaged through the medicine cabinet, she found one last bottle of something tucked way in the back, like her dad was afraid he might run out.  And she wanted to know, suddenly, what had kept him trapped like he was, what was so lovely about those bottles that he kept falling down into them.  It took her three tries to open it, because the band aids made her hands clumsy.

It burned on the way down, and was warm in her stomach, and the taste in her mouth reminded her of the time when she and Eva drank the old cream soda that had been sitting out in the sun all day, choking it down even though it was warm and the bubbles had all gone flat.  She didn't like it at all, didn't like the wooziness in her head and the way her stomach turned in on itself the next morning, didn't get how her father kept managing to choose this over her.

She didn't get it then, but she does now.

 

 

There's all kinds of ways to hide yourself in something, bury yourself in so many different things that you never have the chance to pause and take a moment to look around you.  Like, if you keep yourself moving, you never have to look behind you and see the wreckage that made you start running in the first place.

MJ calls this sublimation.

Nora calls it coping.

"I just don't think this is a good idea."  Peter stood across from her on the mat, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.  He had originally came to talk to Tony, but he ended up hanging out with Nora instead, just like he always does.  She had been down in the basement, with the music so loud that she didn't hear him even when he screamed at her.  Nora had been on the treadmill when he interrupted her, and almost fell off when she felt his hand on her arm.

(It's part of her routine now, to go down and run until she can't feel her legs and she's so out of breath it feels like her lungs are going to explode, then drag herself up the stairs and into bed, hoping that if she gets tired enough, if she works hard enough, she might be able to sleep through the night this time.)

"Why wouldn't it be a good idea?"  She's too excited, too hyper, and a little too uninterested in what Peter's trying to tell her.  "I'm tired to practicing on dummies.  I want to fight someone for real, and Natasha isn't here."  Nora jumps forward and shoves him, so sudden that he isn't expecting it and stumbles backwards.  "What's the matter?  You afraid?"

"No, I just-,"  She reaches out to hit him in the chest, hard, and he catches at her hands, fingers wrapped around her wrist. It's not threatening in the slightest, and she pulls away without trying, jerking herself away from him.  It makes her even angrier, that he isn't fighting back, that he's just letting her hit him and still trying to protect her.

"Just hit me.  Hit me, Peter!"  She hits him with the heel of her palm instead, just a slap against his arm.  He's trying to move away from her now, but she just keeps coming, taking two steps forward for every step he takes back.  "Come on, Parker.  I want to fight.  Can't you fight me?  Or are you scared?  Scared of a little girl?"

"I don't want to hurt you."  He catches at her again, hard this time, and come morning she would have another ring of bruises around her wrist.  

She laughs, loud and high pitched and wild.  _You think you can hurt me?  Think you can hurt me more than everyone else already has, I don't think  I could even feel it even if you did hit me, I know you won't and maybe that's why I'm doing this, I just want proof that you would be willing to hurt me too, maybe I just want to feel something for once._

"That's the whole damn point!"  There's a crack in her voice that might be the start of a sob.  "I want you to hurt me!"

She doesn't know what she does, but one second he's standing in front of her trying to calm her down and the next he's on the ground, arm raised up in front of his face like that might protect him.  Half of her wants to keep going, to kick and punch and scratch until he finally runs away from her, but the other half is already sinking to the ground, scrambling backward to get away from him.  Nora doesn't stop until her back is against Tony's desk, knees to her chest and face hiding in her hands.

"I'm sorry."  She's choking on the words, gasping them out, and the whole thing comes back to her, flashes lighting up in the darkness when she closes her eyes.  She sees a door bursting open with the light of a camera blinking towards him, and the light being thrown across the room, and then feels herself lean over and into Peter, but nora can't think of that anymore, because it also makes her think about Alex and that night at the party, about a boy who didn't think he was doing anything wrong and hands on her hips and lips on neck, all those promises muttered in darkness that don't mean anything come the daylight.  "I'm so sorry, Peter.  So-,"  A sob grows in her throat, catches in her mouth and then bursts out of her, shoulders shake with the force of it.  Her fingernails scratch against the ground, scrambling for something that might cut open the old wounds, but she just finds Peter's hand instead.  "So, so sorry."

"It's okay."  He kneels in front of her on the cold ground but doesn't touch her.  His hand hovers in the air like he's thinking of it, than decides better, moving to sit beside her again.  "We're okay."

 

 

 _I can't remember the last time I was okay,_ she tells him, her face in his shirt, buried deep where the memories can't find her.  His arm is wrapped around her waist and his hands are twisted into her hair, and she's pressed as close to him as she can get, like if they are tied tight enough together he might be able to anchor her to reality.  _I'm not sure if I ever was._

 _You seem okay to me,_ he whispers, and she can feel the words on her skin, just a ghost of a touch over her skin, and it is so different from that other boy on that other night that it makes her want to cry.  _You've always seemed perfect to me._

 

 

Nora doesn't go to school the next day, just stays in bed, the covers pulled over her head.  She's started a game with herself, like, if she makes it to when Tony comes home without falling apart she's going to be okay. Or like,  if she hides in the back of her closet nothing bad will reach her.  Things that don't make sense but seem to help her anyways, so she stays underneath the covers, eyes screwed shut and hands twisted into the fabric.

Maybe she should have been expecting it when Evangeline burst her way into the room, her high heels clomping on the floor.  Nora knows that she should come out from the covers, but can't make herself actually do it, not until a perfectly manicured hand reaches out and rips them away.

"Pathetic."  The word is cruel but her face is kind, and when she reaches down to pull Nora from the bed and drop her onto the floor, its almost comforting in a way that Evangeline's tough love routine never is.  "This is pathetic, you know."

"I know."  She does know, but Nora also thinks she should be allowed to hide in her bed all day if she wants to, considering everything.  Maybe it all piled up, all of it pressed down on her, crushing her until she cracked.  "I'm taking a sick day."

"You're always taking sick days."  Evangeline collapsed onto the floor beside her, the heels of her shoes digging into Nora's calves, and fiddled with the stereo remote until the music was blasting.  "I'd think you'd be happier, considering."

"Considering what?"

For a moment, she thought that Nora was talking about the adoption papers, but there was no way she could have known about that.  Nora and Tony had decided not to tell anyone but Pepper and the Avengers, to keep the press from hounding both of them.  It wouldn't have surprised her if Evangeline would have managed to know, somehow, but from the look on her face it didn't look like that was right.

"Didn't Peter?"  She trailed off with the slightly guilty look of someone who has said more than they should, but still looked amused enough for Nora to know it wasn't serious.  "He didn't ask you?"

"Ask me what?"

If her goal was to get Nora out of bed, Evangeline had succeeded.  Now Nora was tackling her, pinning her to the floor, her sudden weight making Evangeline shriek.  "Nothing!"

"Something!"

"Okay, okay."  She straightened back up and caught her breath, somehow managing to still look impeccable.  It didn't take much for Evangeline to spill secrets- she was a bigger gossip than even Eva was.  "Peter was going to ask you to prom."

"Oh."

And yeah, oh.

 

 

She thinks about it.  

Nora hadn't ever gotten to go to dances.  She didn't really want to- there were no boys she liked enough to go on one, and none of the dresses in her prince range ever fit right, and there wasn't much school dance magic when you knew that it would be in the same small gym you just played kick ball in the day before.  Not to mention that when Monday rolled around, you would still be the same you with the same friends stuck in the same small town, only everyone would be a bit more hungover than normal.

But here, now that she knows that Peter was thinking of taking her, Nora couldn't help but want to give in to high school traditions, if only for one night.  She wasn't going to admit it to anyone, but she liked the promise of getting to dance with Peter, having Tony and Aunt May take awkward pictures of them and having him slip the corsage around her wrist, getting to spend all night at a place where she could be just like any other girl spending a memorable night with a guy she likes.

Nora's already on her way to looking at dresses when she starts to think that maybe this is a bad idea, to remember that maybe she doesn't deserve to have this night of happiness.  Its in the dark that she remembers all the bad things, how Peter had come over to ask her to prom and she had forced him into a fight, knocked him to the ground, and then cried into his arms.  Would he still even want to go with her?  Or maybe he wasn't planning to go with her at all, and it was just Evangeline making assumptions, one of her off hand comments that she thought wouldn't matter but always do? 

Nora doesn't know, so she calls Eden for the first time in weeks, the story spilling out of her without really being able to stop it.  "And now I'm supposed to go to prom with him?"  At the very least, she wasn't thinking of any other awful thing her therapist warned her not to dwell on.  For some reason, thinking about this was much harder.  "Just like that, like nothing bad has happened and I'm just a normal teenager again?"

Nora isn't sure what bad thing she's referring to- her mom dying, her dad being who he was, becoming THE GIRL WHO WALKED AWAY, being a target for a terrorist group, or the other thing, the latest thing, the thing that she still hasn't talked about to anyone other than Bucky. 

"Oh, Nora."  Eden's voice was the same as it always was when Nora was hurt.  She's heard those words in that same tone hundreds of times before, every time she showed up at Eva's door with tears and bruises and mountains of problems.  She had always fixed it before, but Nora's beginning to realize that the world is too big and too full of pain to expect one person to have the answer all the time.  "No one gets to be normal.  No one."

"But I want to be."  She's surprisingly close to tears now.  "I want to just be a regular person, with a regular life, where bad things don't happen."

"Pain comes for everyone, Nora.  It's how you deal with it that makes you different."  A long sigh comes crackling over the line, and Nora knew their conversation was coming to a close.  "Don't worry about Peter.  If he asks you, do yourself a favor and say yes, okay?"

 

 

The next time they see each other, its at a movie night.  She's the last to leave, and her and Peter are sitting on the floor of his bed room, trying to assemble one of his many lego sets.  The only light is coming in through the hall and the window- the lightbulb had burned out and Peter didn't know where Aunt May kept the spares.

Nora had come over here with the intention to say something, and she wasn't going to let herself chicken out.  So when she hears Aunt May finally turn off the tv and go to her room, she draws in a deep breath, trying to gather up the words.  "Evangeline told me you were planning to ask me to prom."  Peter freezes, his hand still in the middle of clicking a lego into place.  "Why didn't you?"

"Well, I wasn't.. I mean, I didn't know..."  He fumbles, looks at the ground, and then finally at her.  "I wasn't sure if you would say yes."

"Of course I would say yes, Peter."  She lets the legos fall to the ground between them and looks him in the eye, trying to somehow show him exactly how much she means that.  "I'd love to go to prom with you."

"Oh.  Okay."   He's got a half smile on his face, one that looks like he's trying to hide how happy he really is.  "Then, I mean, then I guess we're going?  Together?  Like, to prom."

It's an awkward question, thrown out with false confidence like it doesn't mean anything.  And it doesn't, not really, because they're probably just going as friends and neither of them have admitted to wanting anything more ( _though they should, they're basically dating already_ ).  But somehow it means a lot.

"I guess we are going."  She smiles softly, because this was a night full of soft voices and soft smiles and soft red light coming in through the window and playing across his face.  Nora wants to reach out to him, but holds herself back, tells herself not to go any further than the two of them were ready for.  "Together."

 

 


	23. The Before

Nora had never thought about what it would be like to be rich.

She hadn't really seen the need, before, when her entire grade was stuck shopping at the same clearance rack in the same mall. They'd grown up with makeshift backyard swing sets and homemade Halloween costumes that only vaguely resembled the things they were supposed to be, but it hadn't bothered any of them at the time, because at least they were all in the same boat.  They had wondered about the doors that having money might open to them, but other than when it came time to go to college or start looking towards a house that had more than one bathroom, they never gave it much thought.

Now, Nora knows.  She knows what its like to have money, and to come from a family that has money, because she's walking straight into a dress shop not just to buy a dress, but to have a fitting for one that was custom made for her.  MJ and Evangeline designed it together, and Nora had given it her stamp of approval, an Pepper said that she knew someone who could make it

Or rather, Tony knew someone.

"Oh, come on."  He waved his phone in the direction of the seamstress, who smiled indulgently at him in the way that all of Tony's helpers seemed to like he was half their boss and have a beloved nephew that sometimes got them into trouble.  "Do we really need the cut that low?"

"Yes!"  The girl was young, fresh into the business, and Tony got fifty percent off here because he apparently got drunk one night and met her at a bar and decided that he would help start her business, as long as he got a small cut of the profits.  Nora's learned that there's a lot of people like this dotted around the city, all of them profiting from Tony's generosity.  "She's young, and its in style.  It's a classy, I promise."  The girl (Maggie?  Morgan?  Eva couldn't remember) tilted her head and then pinned more fabric off  to the side.  "Sort of."

"Lighten up, tony." Natasha was stretched across one of the chairs, examining her reflection in the mirror.  She slightly resembled a cat.  "You know what they say- flaunt it while you got it."

"She's not flaunting."  He spun around again, this time to point the phone at her, and even though he was trying to make today a fun day for her, Nora could see the stress he's been under lately.  "You hear me kid? No flaunting."

"I got it, Tony."  She did an experimental spin in front of the mirror, the skirt floating out and around her.  The fabric was light and silky against her skin, the finest thing she's ever owned.  Nora doesn't think she's going to get used to getting to have things like this, to having these things within her grasp, for a very long time.  She hopes she never takes it for granted.  "No flaunting."  She spun again, looked over her shoulder at the back, which was what MJ described as tastefully low cut.  "At least, not a huge amount of flaunting."

"A small amount is fine."  He winked at her, and then ducked out to leave, trying to take a phone call without her noticing.  He's been fending off alerts and notices all morning, just because he promised her that this was going to be a day all about them.  And Natasha, apparently.

Nora met Natasha's eyes in the mirror, trying to read whether or not this was something she should be worried about.  "Is it those people again?"  She said, and the dress didn't seem as pretty now, the whole experience not quiet as glamorous.  It just felt silly, to try on a fancy dress and spin around in front of giant glass mirrors when there are people out to kill the ones you love.  (If she was Eden, she would say that's all the more reason to enjoy these things, but she's not.  Eden isn't the one with a target on her back, anyways.)  "The ones that broke into the house."

Natasha studied her for a moment before getting up to walk.  The seamstress (Morgan, Margie, whoever) melted away, and Natasha watched her go.  "Tony always told me that he picked his friends based on who he can trust. Seems like he does that with this business investments, too." 

"You're avoiding the question."

Nora felt the nasueau rise up inside her, the same strange vertigo she feels whenever she gets reminded of the face on the tv screen and the people breaking into her apartment.  Sometimes, if she concentrates, she can still feel the bumps in her knuckles from when she hit them.  Over and over and over.  She isn't sure why Tony still feels the need to hide things from her, after all that.

"It is.  There's been some..."  Natasha folded herself back onto the chair, and Nora felt cold, like she was waiting for the blow to hit.  "Chatter.  Of the bad kind.  That maybe something's going to go down soon."  

It felt like the room got colder when she said it.  Goosebumps broke out over Nora's arms, and she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.  "Are they coming after Tony?"  And then, when what should have been the most obvious question- "Are they coming after me?"

"We don't know for sure, but there's been no direct threat made on any of us.  It could be nothing."

"Or it could be something."

Natasha, at the least, would not lie to her.  She knows what it feels like to have had to grow up too fast, and that no amount of protection could save you once you've felt what it means to have your world ripped away.  "Yes."  A word that means nothing and everything all at once.  "It could be a really big something."

Nora stared at her, at this stupid dress and her stupid hair and the stupid shoes that have heels so tall she would have to practice walking in them, and wished that for just one day, she would be able to make it through without being afraid.

 

 

Sometimes, you think that your world is crashing down around you and there's nothing that could distract you from how awful it is.  And then you hang out with your best friends and realize that sometimes, they manage to have a life that's even suckier.  

"She laughed?"

Nora didn't know why she was saying it, when Ned had told her the story from start to finish, his voice flat in the way it always is when something upsets you and you have to pretend that its not big deal.  He's probably told the story five times today already, and here she was, parroting useless questions back at him.  

"Right in my face.  Said she wasn't that desperate, but she'd call me if she ever got there.  In front of the whole entire class."  He groaned, miserable, and buried his face in his hands.  "I brought her flowers."

"You did?"  Another stupid question.

"Roses.  Twelve of them."  MJ laughed, a short bark of a sound that cut off before it could really start, but the beginning was bad enough.  "It was really sweet, I guess."

"It is really sweet."  This was Evangeline's first contribution to the conversation.  She normally ignores Ned, but she does have a thing for strays, and right now, he definitely qualifies.  "Was it your idea?"

"No.  Peter's.  That's what he was going to do for Nora, but,"  There was a short scuffle as Peter shushed him and they half heartedly tackled each other, but even that couldn't lift Ned's spirits.  "But he didn't need to, obviously, so he said I might as well go for it. Called it a classic."

"Well, I mean, it was."  He shrugged, all of them just as hopeless, a feeling that got even worse when MJ found a link to a video that Flash had just posted, which gave a play by play recap of the entire thing.  It was mean, but even Nora had to admit it was funny.

"I can't show my face there now.  Not by myself."

"Then don't go by yourself!"  Nora was grasping at straws, trying to find a solution when there clearly wasn't any.  For some kids, high school just sucked.  "You just need to find a date."

"I'll go."  Evangeline didn't look up from her phone, so maybe she didn't notice the expressions on their faces, but she did notice the shocked silence.  "Oh, come on, it won't be weird.  We'll go as friends, you'll hang out with some computer nerds, I'll bounce between Nora and MJ.  And everyone sees you walk in with a super hot girl on your arm, so no one will dare make fun of you for getting turned down, and if you pretend that you kiss me after, you'll have enough street cred to make it though at least the rest of the semester.  The rest of the year if I really go all out."  She paused, her long nails clacking on the counter.  "But just to be clear, you will not be kissing me."

"I-,"  Ned stopped, started again, and then sat there opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish.  "Sounds good."

"Great."  She tapped him on the nose, then walked out, high heels clicking on the tile floor.  They all stared after her, still unsure what to make of her, after everything.  "My dress will be black.  Get a tie to match."

 

 

She finds the files on Tony's computer on accident.

Nora was supposed to be checking his email, helping him find the perimeters that Rhoey had told him to try on the newest suit, but had stumbled on something else instead- numbers and names and a map of possible headquarters, a bunch of legal jargon that she couldn't understand but new MJ would be able to.  And she almost did it, had the cursor hovering over the forward button, but then thought that maybe she wasn't quite qualified to play detective.

Tony was the type of person to go off on his own, build a new suit and take down all the bullies.  Nora was more a team player, and even then she just seemed to be the side kick that got wrapped up in things that she didn't understand.

"Tony?"  She scrolled down further, to where her name was listed along with his and Natasha's and Bucky's, a list of motives and a table of possible results, negotiations that could be made and those that couldn't.  It was a battle plan, but the kind that was preparing for a worst case scenario.  "What is this?"

He was there behind her in an instant, leaning over her shoulder to minimize the screen.  "That?  That was-,"  He hit his screwdriver against the desk what too much fore to call it a tap.  "something that I didn't know was there and that you shouldn't have seen."

"Its those people, isn't it?  You didn't get rid of them, they were just lying low, letting the hype die down before coming at you again."  She sat down on the chair hard, all the feeling going out of her legs, like she had just run a mile at full sprint.  "And now they're coming after you.  Me.  All of us."

She wasn't sure when the us started, but it was hear now, and so was the fear that came from caring about people, catching in her throat and pooling in her hands.  It made her want to punch something.  That's been her answer for everything lately.  Maybe she should ask Tony to make Nora a suit of her own, just for emergencies. 

"Yes.  They are.  They're going to hit.  But here's the thing, Nora,"  He crouched down so he could look her in the eye, put his hands on her shoulders so she couldn't look away.  "We're going to hit them back.  And we hit harder, I promise."

Nora doesn't put much stock in promises anymore, even frm people who intend to keep them, but she smiles anyways.

 

 

"Do you ever stop and think about how awful the world is?  How like, you feel okay one day, and then the next its just back to being shit?"  She was laying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.  Peter's on the other end of the line, an he's quiet after her question, the sound of his breathing crackling in the silence.  "Peter?"

"No."  He's an orphan too, she remembers suddenly.  Its one of the things you don't think about, something that ties you together with any other person that has this experience.  Her, Peter, even Tony.  The dead parents club.  "I try not to.  It's not like we can change it."

"But don't you wish you could?  Don't you wish you had superpowers to, and when someone hurts somebody you want to protect, you'd finally be able to?"  She wants to take the whole world in her arms sometimes, hold them close where nothing bad can reach them.  Like that's all it would take to keep evil away.  "I think life would be easier, if I was stronger."

"No.  No, I just think,"  There was a sound on the other end that might have been him punching a pillow.  "I just think that if we had superpowers, there would just be more people to care about, and more to lose.  I don't think we'd win all the time, Nora.  And when we lose, I think we'd lose a lot more than we thought we could."

"Maybe."  She squared up the ceiling with her hands, trying to take measurements.  Maybe she and Eden could paint starry night across it the next time she comes up to visit. "I'm just tired of being afraid, I think."

"There's a lot to be afraid of, Nora."  She should hear him roll over, and Nora pictured him lifting up his phone to squint at the time in the darkness.  "We should probably hang up before my Aunt May catches us."

"Probably."

There was a smile in her voice; she could hear it in his.

"Are we going to?"  Nora didn't think she would ever get to this point, where she would stay up all night taking about nothing at all to someone, and no matter how tired she is the next day, she would still think it was worth it.  

And Nora definitely didn't think that one person could make her so happy with just a handful of words, never thought she would stupid enough to put herself in someone else's hands again, or ever be able to trust that someone would eve be able to hold her up, after everything she's been through.

Peter's voice came over the line again, and it's a relief when she hears it, when she knows that he won't be leaving her alone in the darkness.   

 


	24. The Proposal

It's entirely silent.

If someone were to take a picture, they might all find it quite comical later.  They had all frozen in place, all these non fancy people sitting at a table filled with fancy food and china plates.  Bucky and Steve were halfway through a wrestling match, Clint had one kid over each shoulder, and Natasha had abandoned the fancy meal in favor of desert.  Peter was holding a glass of champagne to the light and aunt May was giggling, red faced, and Nora was trying to convince MJ that yes, the lettuce really organic, and it was safe for her to eat.

And Tony?  Tony was down on one knee beside Pepper, ring in hand, with no announcement or warning, just spontaneously did it like he couldn't wait one more moment.

"Oh."  Pepper had a hand to her mouth, and looked suspiciously close to bursting into tears.  "Oh, my God, Tony."

"Don't say no, okay?"  He looked incredibly nervous but also incredibly happy.  Nora wished he would look happy like that more often.  "Don't think of all the reasons that this is a bad idea, or not worth it, or whatever other doubts your magnificent mind might come up with.  Just think about the fact that I love you, and you love me.   More than anything in this entire world, I love you, Pepper Potts."

Nora reached out beside her, grabbing Peter by the arm and biting her lip to keep from smiling.  Everyone else seemed to have caught on and were completely silent, the only sound the clink of metal on china when the silverware was set back on the plate.

"Say yes."  He was still down on one knee, and still smiling, but now he was holding onto her hand.  They were in a roomful of people, but it was like the two of them were caught up in their own world, their own moment.  "Just say yes, and I'll make you the happiest woman on the planet."

"Oh, my god."  She said again, and then she was down on the floor too, laughing through tears and wrapping her arms around his neck in a hug.  Pepper was still in her work clothes, straight from a meeting in Tokoyo, and was the only one of them who looked like she was ready for a fancy dinner party.  Tony was in old jeans and a grease stained t-shirt, but it was perfect, somehow. and Nora counted herself lucky to be part of this little family, no matter how messed up it was sometimes.  "Yes.  Of course, yes."

"Thank God."  Tony lifted his head up and met Nora's eyes, lifted an arm, and then suddenly she was there too, part of this little family on the floor who was laughing and crying at the same time, happy that for once, something was working out in their favor.  "Thank god."

 

 

 

"I didn't know you were going to do that,"  Nora says, later, when its just her and Tony in the kitchen doing dishes.  The rest of their guests were out on the patio, and from the sound of it, someone had convinced FRIDAY to open up the pool.  "I can't believe you didn't tell any of us!"

"I wasn't sure if I would go through with it."  He laughed, leaning back against the counter, and Nora could see the relief written across his face, like he didn't believe until this moment that Pepper was actually going to say yes.  and maybe he hadn't.  It wouldn't have surprised her if Tony had spent that whole proposal preparing himself for the moment when she said no, telling himself its better to try and fail than never no.  "Then I thought I would just wing it."

"Well,"  Nora knelt down to pick up the cake, chocolate with buttercream frosting, which Tony hated but Pepper loved.  "It turned out pretty nice."

 

 

The whole evening did turn out pretty nice.  Tony had thrown this whole thing as a sort of morale booster, claiming that he and the team used to this sort of thing all the time before the whole Siberia fiasco.  He liked throwing parties and giving things away, and good times were easy to come by, even if it meant doing a hell of a lot of clean up in the morning.

"Are you happy?"

Peter was sitting beside her on the edge of the pool, so close that their arms pressed together and their legs brushed each other in the water.  MJ was out in the deep end with Clint's kids, because she's surprisingly good with children. 

"Am I happy?"  Nora hadn't given much thought to being happy in a while.  She had thought about other things -safety and pain, grief and danger, worry and love- but she hadn't thought about the simple joy that came from being happy, of having a smile not feel like a stranger on your face.  "I think so.  It gets hard to tell, after a while."

"I hope you are happy.  I think you are, even if it gets hard to know sometimes."  He bumps his shoulder into hers and then takes her hand, the closest thing to a gesture of affection he's ever initiated.  Sometimes, she wishes he was the type of boy to just grab her by the shoulders and kiss her, but if he was, then he wouldn't be Peter.  "I want you to be happy all the time."

"thanks, Peter."  She lays her head on his shoulder, watches the kids use MJ as a jungle gym and laughs when Natasha shoves Bucky's head down under the water.  Across from them, sitting side by side at the table and accepting Vision's congratulations, Tony and Pepper hadn't let go of each others hands.  "I think I will be."

 

 

Tony had one last announcement last night, one that he actually made a big deal of, clinking a spoon against a champagne glass to get everyone's attention like they do in the movies when they're about to make a toast.  And then he spilled the beans about the adoption being official, and how Nora's part of the family, and there was another round of cheers and tears, and the only way Nora could get through being in the spotlight for that long was grabbing onto Peter's hand and not letting go.  But by the end of it, when she had accepted a round of hugs and they all settled back into their places, she couldn't help feeling that yes, she was happy, for the first time in what felt like forever.


	25. Prom (pt. 2)

"Are you sure I look okay?"

She'd asked this for what felt like a hundred times, but every time she looked in the mirror, she couldn't help but ask it again.  It just didn't feel like her, in this dress with her hair looking like it did, and even though she knew that she looked prettier than she ever had in her life, it was so different that nora couldn't help but turn back to Wanda and Natasha for reassurance.  

"Yes."  Wanda rolled her eyes and barked the word out, wrapping her over the knuckles with her hair brush.  "How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Probably at least five more."  Nora smiled weakly, then gave a spin in front of the mirror just like she did the last time she tried it on, watching the skirt swirl.  

"And we'll tell you that you look beautiful each time."  Natasha leaned over her shoulder and looked at her in the mirror, tucking a stray hair back into place, smoothing her hand down her cheek.  "Peter's going to love you."

 

 

Pictures were at the house, so Nora didn't have to go anywhere, just wait anxiously until the others showed up.  And they did, one by one, Ned coming first and fangirling over Tony for a moment, then Evangeline, who told her that she looked beautiful and then tugged on nora's dress until it showed more cleavage, and then MJ and her date.  And finally, Peter, who stumbled in through the door with the corsage in hand and Aunt May trailing behind him, lugging a full size camera at her waist.

"Sorry, sorry, traffic was horrible at the-,"  He stopped dead in the middle of the living room, just a few steps from her, seemingly at a loss for words.

"Well?"  She didn't mean to sound so nervous, but she couldn't act like this didn't mean anything to her, either.  Pretending wouldn't have worked well, either- Peter could see right through her.  "What do you think?"

"I think you're beautiful."  He took his place beside her, and then slid the corsage onto her wrist like he'd done it a million times before.  Nora had never seen him this confident, but maybe prom, and the sense that things are different, brought out a different side in everybody.  "But I always think you're beautiful."

 

 

Pictures were strange, like pictures always were, all of them staring at their parents with plastered on smiles and trying not to blink even when their eyes burned.  Aunt May had to take a million shots of each pose, and Peter didn't know what to do with his hands, and Tony insisted that they take one of "just the girls," Evangeline being a complete boss and arranging everybody just the way she liked them.  Nora didn't like it, but she titled her head this way and that and smiled all the same, and when Aunt May told her to get a little closer to Peter, she actually went up on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek.

(She kept her heels off for pictures, as a courteousey to Peter, because she didn't want him to feel too awkward when he sees how much taller she is than him with them on.)

And then, finally, when the sun was setting and all the adults seemed satisfied that they had got enough pictures to make it a night they couldn't forget even if they tried, they finally got to leave, each of them going into separate cars, Peter helping Nora into the passenger seat and then returning to the driver's side.  "Now, remember, not one scratch."   Tony dangled the keys from his fingers, trying his best to look threatening and failed.  "I want this returned in pristine condition, you hear me."

"Yes sir, Mr. Stark, sir."  Peter had mostly stopped his habit of just babbling whenever he got close to Tony, but sometimes when he's particularly nervous, it comes back in full force.  "Not one scratch, Mr. Stark, you can count on me."

Tony stared at him, half exasperate and half fond, then reached out to ruffle his hair.  "Just have a fun night, okay kid?  And you,"  He reached over to take Nora's hand, some weird thing they've started doing in place of a hug, because neither of them like hugs.  "Stay safe, okay?  Call if you need anything."

"I'm with Peter, Tony.  What's going to happen?"  She fiddled with the radio, getting it to a station she liked, prepared to turn it all the way up when they hit the road.  Then she turned to face Peter, who was staring at the windshield instead of looking at her.  "Do you know how to drive this thing?"

"Uh,"  He looked dow at all the buttons, and then at the pedals, which had one extra than normal and was just for flying.  "No."

"I'll give you a hint,"  Nora put her window up, then the roof, which wasn't as fun but was necessary for her hair.  "You go fast."

 

 

They do drive fast, faster than she thought Peter would have dared, passing MJ first and then even Evangeline, who drives like a maniac even on a good day.  They take turns at break neck speed, only slowing down when they reach the city, the music turned up so loud the bass shakes the car.  It feels like being young, and as giddy as she is, Nora half thinks that this is what being in love should feel like.

They pull up in front of the school and give the keys to a sophomore, who looks terrified to have to park it, and then walk arm in arm up the steps.  They gym is still a gym, and not very magical at all, but it is covered with fairy lights and streamers and has a table full of cookies, so its not like its horrible.

"So this is it, huh?"  She puts her purse down on a table and edges close to him, feeling bolder now than he has at any other moment in her life, like she's cinderella and everything she does tonight will disappear in the morning.  Peter looks a little flustered at first, but then he leans into her, a necessity with the chatter of the other students and the volume of the music.  "The famous prom?"

"This is it.  And here we are.  Together."  He's fidgeting, eyes darting around the room, and too late Nora remembers about his sensory overload.  She leans into him, gives him something to anchor him to her, away from the lights and the music.  

He grabs onto her hand, and holding hands with him here feels different than holding his hand any other night.  "Here we are."

 

 

The first three dances are fast songs none of them know, so the six of them (Nora and Peter, MJ and her date, Ned and Evangeline) sit it out, crowding together at one table and playing uno.  It's fun, but it's also sort of what they do every other night, only know they're all really dressed up.  But then the music changes, the pace slowing and the lights dimming, the whole room hushed as the atmosphere changes, and the six of them get inevitably more tense.

Evangeline is the first to move, crashing through the discomfort like she does everything else.  "Oh, come on."  She holds out a hand to Ned and stares at him impatiently until he takes it, yanking him to hit feet.  "Keep the hands above the waist, or I kill you."

Then its MJ and her date slipping away and melting into the crowd, leaving Nora and Peter sitting side by side.  "Do you want to-,"  He starts, then stops, playing a card instead, which is such a Peter-like diversion Nora almost laughs.

"I want to dance."   She stands up and he follows, right to the edge of the dance floor where no one would see them, not MJ or Evangeline or Ned, and definitely not Flash, should he come looking.  "That's what I came for, you know?"

There's another awkward moment before they actually start to dance, both of them standing apart and wondering where to put their hands, but then she moved close to him and he reached out for her, the two of them somehow finding their way to each other.  What they're doing isn't dancing, exactly, more like just swaying while standing very, very close to each other, but she likes it.

"Do you remember when we danced with each other at Tony's gala?  When you were saving me from that man?"  She's in her bare feet so she's shorter than him again and has to go on tiptoe to talk to him.  Nora's whispering right into his ear, balanced with one hand on his shoulder and the other wrapped around the back of his neck, so she's just sort of pressed against him.  "That's when I knew that you were someone I could trust.  Because I felt like you were always going to be there to save me.  And you have, haven't you?  you just keep saving me."

She isn't sure which night she's referring to, if its to the big things like when he stayed with her during those first lonely days or when he came to help her when those men broke into the house, or if it was all the little things piled up, but its the truth.  He's saved her, over and over, and after a while Nora had just grown to expect it, like he would always be there.

Peter's not really looking at her, just off to the side, and its like he's scared.  She hasn't really seen him scared before, but it's on his face now, like he's been knocked off balance and afraid of the fall.  "I like you," His eyes are squeezed shut and the words come out pained, like someone stuck hooks in him and was dragging them out one by one.  "I mean, like, really, really like you."

Nora stared at him, knowing that she should say it back but wondering if that was enough, if that was really the truth, when there were so many other more complicated emotions piled on top of the liking.  It was stronger than like but not quite love, and she didn't trust her words not to ruin it, anyways, so she just leaned in and kissed him like she'd wanted to since that night at Tony's gala: like they were the only ones in the room, like this was everything to both of them, like they could turn promises and I love you's into forever's.

"I like you, too."  She whispers it into his chest as the song ends, wondering if he heard but not really caring if he did, because everything important has already been said.

 

 

 

When they rejoin the group, its with shy smiles and secrets glances, the wonderful uncertainty that you always feel when things are changing, even for the better.  they hold hands and don't let go, and laugh louder than is strictly necessary, and every time she looks over at Peter, he's already looking over at her.  Nora's just thinking that tonight would be as magical as Eden promised her it would be when she looked over and realized that Peter still wasn't back from wherever he had disappeared to ten minutes ago, promising it would only take a few seconds.

"MJ!"  She has to yell over the music, and there is anxiety pounding in her chest.  It's stupid, but Nora couldn't help but wonder if he was off somewhere freaking out, thinking about how he didn't really mean it, he didn't want it, he didn't want her. It didn't sound like Peter, but this was new for her, too, and she couldn't help it.  "Have you seen Peter?"

"What?"  MJ hadn't been listening to her the first time, still wrapped up in her date.  She looked happy, like she wasn't thinking about social activeness or political debates, but like she was a teenage girl enjoying a high school dance.  Nora felt bad for dragging her away. "Is everything okay?"

"I don't know where Peter is.  Help me look?"  She was pleading, pathetic, but MJ always was the strong one, so she whispered a few words to her date and took Nora by the arm, dragging her straight through the sea of dancing couples to get to Ned.  He was leaning against the wall with a few of his gaming friends, looking like he was having the time of his life.

"Ned."  MJ hit him in the arm, hard.  "Where's Peter?"

"I don't know.   Evangeline's out in the parking lot, said she needed a smoke break or something.  Maybe he went with her?"

Later, Nora would wonder why none of them thought to wonder about why Peter would follow her out into the parking lot when he only talked to Evangeline because of Nora.  Or when Evangeline started to smoke.  Or really why Evangeline had talked to any of them in the first place.  But at the moment they were just two girls trying to find their friends, so they just walked out into the parking lot, the double doors slamming into the railing and the night air hitting them like a slap in the face.  

"Peter?"  They had to walk a while to find him, struggling through the broken cement in their bare feet, but when they came to the third row of cars, he was right in the middle talking to Evangeline.  Nora felt a sinking feeling in her stomach, and reached out to MJ to hold her back, though she couldn't have said why.  "What are you doing out here?"

Peter looks confused, eyes going from her and MJ to Evangeline and then back again.  MJ's eyes were narrowed, and she was going for her purse, in the pocket where she always keep her key chain with the pepper spray.  But there is no keys, because Thomas drove them, and her car is still at Nora's house.  

"Evangeline said you were sick."  Peter took one step closer to her, and then rounded on Evangeline, like he, too was wondering where things went wrong.  Nora didn't get it yet, either.  None of them did.  "That you came out to get some air, and had asked her to pass on the message.  I came to check on you?"

"What is wrong with you?"  MJ started angrily, taking a step forward to yank Peter back.  "Why would you-,"  Then she paused, taking another step back and shaking her head, like she was reminding herself that this was Evangeline they were talking about.  "Was this a joke?  Because I don't get the punch line."

they turned to go, sure she would follow and apologize and maybe explain, and then Nora felt a hand on her shoulder.  There was a soft click, barely audible, and then headlights flooded the darkness in front of them, so bright that Nora had to throw a hand up to shield her eyes.  

Evangeline circled around them, and Nora thought she would remember that moment forever, her silhouette highlighted against the sudden light as they all caught their bearings, her perfect hair forming a halo around her head and the gun in her hands glinting in the moonlight.  For a moment, Nora didn't understand, and then all at once, she did.

"I'm sorry about this, guys."  Evangeline did sound sorry, but what Nora noticed the most was the fact that her hands weren't shaking, not even a little.  "It may not seem like it, but I am."

 

 


	26. To Those Who Are Brave

She looks like an angel, lit up in the light like that.

It's the last coherent thought that Nora can remember having, before the whole thing was a haze of starbursts of pain and voices floating down to her.  She remembered Peter moving in front of both her and MJ, arms spread out like that was going to protect them, and then a pinprick of pain in her neck.  Then the ground rushed up to meet her, the pavement skinning her bare knees and stinging her palms, one arm bent underneath, the other stretching those few inches to get to MJ.

"Don't worry,"  Evangeline's voice was coming from somewhere far away, like she was underwater.  She was still surrounded by the light coming from the headlights, her hair down around her face in a halo as she kneels beside Nora.  Her hand comes with her, gentle and apologetic as it cradles her cheek, like she wanted to make this easier.  "It's all going to be okay."

"Eva..."  It's the only sound that Nora can make.  It doesn't occur to her to scream, but she does reach out and fumble for Evangeline's wrist, wrap her heavy fingers around the skin and try to tug her down to the ground.  It wasn't making sense yet, and she couldn't make the words to ask questions, not with her tongue so heavy in her mouth.  

"Sshh,"  There was that hand again, smoothing the hair away from her face and pushing her back into the ground, and then there were more hands, wrapping around her and lifting her into the air.  They take her to the van that had started all this, and when they sit her down, Evangeline huddles on the ground beside her and lets Nora use her lap as a pillow.  "It's going to be fine,"  She says, as the door closes and she catches one last glimpse of MJ's face.  "Everything's going to be fine."

 

 

She wakes up to a room full of white.  White walls and white floors, blinding white lights that send flashes of pain shooting through her temples.  It's overly clean, the kind that speaks of hours spent with buckets of water and worn down rags, the product of someone who was trying very hard to make a statement.  And in the corner, with a red light blinking down at her, was a camera.

"You're awake."  The voice from the doorway made Nora jump.  She hadn't noticed the person before- she couldn't turn herself around to even look at them, not with how tightly they had tied her into the chair.  "That boy has been up for ages, screaming for you the whole time.  It's been rather bothersome."

"What boy?"  It's strange how decidedly calm she felt, like now that she was actually here, in the danger that everyone had warned her about, she didn't see any reason to worry.  Maybe the waiting was the hard part.  "Do you mean Peter?"

"Peter?  Is that his name?"  There's the click of heels on tile, and then the woman appeared in front of her.  It only takes Nora a moment to recognize her from that day at the mall, when her face was broadcasted on every screen in America.  But there's another layer of recognition, like this woman had taken the features of someone Nora knew very well and warped them, shaping them into something similar but entirely different.  "You made a very cute couple.  I'm sorry we had to do this tonight, of all nights."

"At homecoming?"  It was like her mind was working through a fog, trying to connect dots that weren't there.  "But how- how did you see- were you _watching_ us?"

The woman laughed, and it was a high, tinkling kind, the one Nora imagines that suburban moms make when they wait outside the school for their kids and have to make small talk with one another.  "My daughter showed me.  Kept me updated the whole time the two of you were getting ready, and getting pictures.  It's fun for her, those high school things."

"Your daughter?"  Nora felt the same sinking in her stomach she had when she walked outside to see Peter and Evangeline together, like she knew something was horribly wrong but could not quite figure out what it was.

"Evangeline."  And there it was, the bad thing, the wrong thing, the truth of it hitting Nora so hard in the chest that she could barely remember how to breathe.  Suddenly, this woman's face fit together, with her hair and sharp smile and the tension in her shoulders becoming a carbon copy of Evangeline's.  "Of course, that's not her real name, she got to pick a new one for this.  Why on _earth_ she went with that ridiculous thing I'll never be able to tell, but there you are."  She shrugged, and then sat down on the chair in the otherwise bare room, folding her hands together and crossing her legs at the ankles.  Like a lady should.  "Teenagers, you know."

Nora could only stare, her mind a tidal wave of questions.  "why are you doing this?  Have you hurt Peter?"  Another image fought through the haze, MJ's stretched out hand, the door slamming closed before Nora could see what they did to her.  "What about MJ?"

"Michelle is fine."  Evangeline's mom waved the question away.  "And so is Peter, before you start screaming for him, too.  As for why you're here?  Well, you know the answer to that one, don't you dear?"

 

 

She did.  Nora had seen the answer coming a mile away, told to her through all of Tony's top secret meetings and the extra security measures and all the folders she was never supposed to read, the things that MJ dug up and the anxiety in Peter's eyes that meant he knew more than he was telling her.  She knew about the people who didn't like the Avengers, who blamed them for the mess they made when they saving the world instead of placing the responsibility where it belonged.  And she knew what it meant when they took her from that white room and sat her down with a piece of paper and a tape recorder, all sugary sweet smiles and hard eyes.  

"Just tell us what its like,"  this was Evangeline's mom again, who seemed to think that promises and pleas were the best way.  "Just tell us about Tony Stark."

There were other rooms that they had passed on the way here, full of monitors and computers and bulky men with guns strapped to their hips.  There would be no escape, and even as much as Nora didn't want to end up locked in a room somewhere while they tried to break her down, she knew she couldn't answer the questions.  "No."  Her voice was shaking, and so were fingers, so she laid her hands flat on the table and answered again, making the word louder this time.  "No.  I'm not telling you a thing."

"It's not a request."  

Evangeline had always seemed dangerous and beautiful at the same time, like the sharp side of a decorative knife.  Her mother just looked dangerous, a snake coiled up ready to strike.  And Nora had a feeling that even though her voice was soft and gentle, the consequences for not doing what she wanted would be anything but.  "I know."

"We're going to get the answers no matter what, you know that, don't you?"  She came around to her side of the table and crouched down beside Nora's chair.  "We're going to get what we want."

"Not from me."

"Everyone always thinks that, in the beginning."  She ran her hand along the back of Nora's chair, her fingers brushing her back.  She was still in her dress, but now it wasn't beautiful at all, just ripped and stained.  "But we will.  Of course we will."

 

 

Once, when the room had been too quiet and the night too dark, Tony had started talking about Afghanistan.  She's can't remember why now (maybe she had had nightmares, maybe he was trying to find some common ground between the two of them, maybe she had been awful enough to ask) but she did remember the story he spilled out.  About the shrapnel and the car battery, about seeing all his weapons and saying no, about torture, about fists and knives and drowning on dry land, how he always thought that this would be the time they didn't give him a chance to breathe.

Tony, of course, built a death machine out of scraps and flew himself to safety, and became the first Avenger.  He changed the world with that day.

Nora wasn't changing the world.  She was just getting beat up.  

"Are you ready now?"  The man smiled at her through a row of crooked teeth.  One of them was black, like it was rotting away, and the sight of it made her cringe.  "Are you ready to smile for your father?"

They wanted a video to send to Tony.  One where she sat and smiled through her split lip, where they could cover up the bruises with make up, and she would lie and say that they were treating her nicely.  Where they told him what he needed to do, and she would say _please, Tony, please just do what they want so I can come back home.  I'm scared, dad._ And he would save her.

Nora hadn't wanted to at first.  But then there was the long walk from the white room to this room, where the men dragged her here by her hair as she kicked and screamed.  There was the tub full of water, and her head being shoved down into it, and her lungs burning so bad that she just had to draw in a breath, and that hurt more, made her gasp and choke and cry when she came up for air.  (She read once that drowning was the most painful way to die and hadn't believed it, but now she does.)  And there was a night spent shivering in the cold, still in her stupid dress, and the door slamming open the next morning, to repeat the whole process.

At first, she wanted to be brave.  But now she was just a scared little girl who wanted her dad to save her, and who didn't have time to worry about anyone else, not MJ or Peter or Tony, not when she wasn't sure what they were going to do to her next.

There would be a time when they would get her to say yes.  But not yet.

"No."  It's a whisper, spoken in a broken voice, but somehow the sound echoes in the room.  "Not yet."

 

 

They ended up taking a video anyway.

Not the one they wanted, obviously, they never did manage to make her cooperate enough for that.  What they did was tie her to a chair and shove her head down into that water one last time, so sudden that she didn't even draw breathe, and kept her down there long enough to think that this is it, this is the end, this is her execution and her good bye- but then they yanked her back to the surface and let her cough and splutter all she wanted, no one saying a word while she does it.

"You see?"  Evangeline's mom said, sickly sweet into the camera.  She had Nora's hair twisted in her hand and was forcing Nora to stare into the camera.  "You took my son.  I took your daughter.  I didn't have a chance to save him.  But you do, Mr. Stark.  You do."

It cuts off with a pop, and then Nora is released, slumping in the chair and gasping for air.  Normally, she asks for information on Peter, but not this time.  This time she does not have the energy to worry about anyone but herself.  "I just don't get you."  They were alone, just the two of them.  Evangeline's mom was more real like this, when she was just with Nora.  She didn't really want to hurt her, Nora knew.  She just wanted her son.  "They killed your father. They _killed_ him.  Don't you want to make that right?"

"No,"  Nora said, knowing that she wouldn't understand and not really caring if she did.  It wouldn't have made a difference anyways.  Sometimes, pain turns to fear, and from there comes hate.  That's hard to fight when you're just a girl tied to a chair.  "Not at all."

 

 

They find her a place to stay a few hours later.  It's cold and empty, just another white room with the same blinding lights, but it is relatively safe.  And there's Peter, right on the other side of the wall.

"Did they hurt you?"  They are speaking in hushed voices, which isn't needed but feels appropriate.  

"No.  They just stuck me in here and left me."  He doesn't say what Nora knows is true, how he screamed and pounded on the walls so hard that he left bruises up and down his arms.  "Did they hurt you?"

"Yes."  There is no point in lying.  "But I've had worse."

He laughs, and it sounds hollow.  "What do you think they're going to do to us?"

"I'm not sure."  Nora has a lot of theories, but none of them are good, and there's nothing they can do if she's right, anyways.  "Do you think Tony's going to come save us?"

"He's probably on his way right now."  He sounds the youngest whenever he's trying to be strong for her.  "He has to be."

"Yeah."  She does not sound convincing.  "He has to be."

 

 

She pictures it sometimes, what Tony would look like when he watches the video.  In her head, he's with the rest of the avengers, all of them huddled at some debriefing or meeting, the video brought up amid hushed voices and worried glances.  In her head, Tony doesn't say anything, just watches, refusing to look away.  And at the end, he'd throw whatever was in his hand and try to run off and save her himself, have to be talked down Natasha and brought back to the chair, everyone saying that he needs _to think this through._

Nora pictures other people, too.  Bucky and Steve exchanging glances in the way they do when thyey're thinking something they won't say in front of everyone else.  Pepper, with one hand on Tony's shoulder and the other over her mouth, sitting in her big corner office when she gets the email.  Natasha leaning forward with her elbows on the table so she can soak up every detail, and Clint watching it at his farm house with his kids screaming in the next room, telling his wife _I have to go, I'm sorry_ in the next moment.

She doesn't notice she's crying until Peter does.  "Hey."  They're pressed up the bars as close as they get _,_ to the point where the cement wall between them doesn't mean anything.  "Hey.  You alright?"

"No."  She had promised herself she was going to brave because she had to, like Tony had to, like Bucky had to, like Natasha always was.  But now that she was here, in this cold cell with all the bruises, shivering in her dress, she didn't feel very brave.  And even though she'd tried her best to act like a hero, she didn't much feel like one.  "God, of course I'm not all right."

He was quiet, long enough that she thought he had given up on making her feel better and walked away because he couldn't take her panic on top of his own, but then she saw his hand, stretching out around the bars and over to her in a way that must have been uncomfortable for him to do.  If she tried, laid down flat on her stomach and stretched out her hand, they could just barely touch, her fingertips resting on top of his.

"It's going to be okay.  Tony will come."  There was something in his voice that Nora had lost around three beatings ago- hope, maybe, or faith.  "You'll see."

 

 


	27. All the Lovely Ones Have Scars

They leave them alone, for the most part.

She's not sure how long they've been there.  Nora tries to store up little details, to figure out where they are to report to Tony when he does finally rescue them, but so far, nothing is working.  She thinks they're underground, and Peter is somehow convinced that they're just outside of New York (apparently he was awake after they got abducted), and thanks to one of the guards taking pity on them, they know for sure that MJ is safe.

They're catching scraps of information they aren't supposed to know, like how they're really just playing a waiting game to see if Tony and the Avengers will take the bait.  Or how the only end game for these people is that the Avengers end, preferably in a painful fashion, and they'll be happy with whatever consequences they have to face because of it.

"We might die,"  She says, around a time that they think if lunch but could be in the middle of the night.  "They might kill us, and no one will ever know what happened to us."

"I'm not scared."  They've taken to holding hands any chance they get, even if the guards come along and kick them apart any time they notice.  He's got steel in his voice now, a kind of resolve that she hadn't yet heard from him.  "I'll get you out of here, I promise."

She doesn't ask him how he planned to do it.  

 

They take her out of her cage ten hours later.

She can keep track of time through the changing of the guards, counting the number of times they pace up and down the long hallway, hearing the door squeak open when one replaces the other.  Time blurs together after a while, but for now, she learns to know when night turns into day.

Right now is definitely night, when the door swings open and a leather gloved hand reaches down to yank her out of sleep, holding her upright as she catches her bearings.  "Get up now, love."  This is the nice one, the one she can count on for a bit of news and a scrap of the food his wife packs him in his lunch.  "The boss wants to see you."

That's what they call Evangeline's mom.  The boss.  

"Why?"  She blinks against the harsh light, still surprising even after however long she'd been here.  "why does she want to see me?"

"I don't ask questions."  His hands are heavy on her shoulders, but gentle, and it doesn't take much prompting before she turns toward him and lets him put on the blindfold.  There's always a blindfold. "I just do what I'm told."

She sighs, and thinks about calling out a good bye to Peter, but at the sight of him sleeping in the corner of his room, she thinks better of it.  "Let's get this over it."

 

 

She's always blindfolded when they take her places, led through hallways full of twists and turns, then up elevators and down steps.  Nora thinks she could be able to make it out, at least to the upper levels, but from there, she'd have no idea where to turn.  She supposes that that is the point of the blindfold.

When she enters the room, there is no bucket of ice cold water, just a long oak table covered in food, one bare lightbulb hanging down over it.  Evangeline's mother sat at one end of it, and after staring for a moment, Nora took a seat at the other.

"Sit."  Margot (Evangeline's mom) waved a hand out in front of her.  Her ring glinted in the light, sparkles shining off the diamonds.  "Eat.  Drink with me."

It's a proper dinner, the sort of fancy she had been expecting to be forced to have every night when she first moved in with Tony.  She doesn't make a move for any of the food, not trusting it enough to put her guard down even a moment, but she does bring the crystal wine glass to her lips, just to play the part.  She doesn't swallow anything.  "What's this for?"

"Do I need a reason to entertain my guest?"  Margot tried for a smile, but it cracked and wavered pretty fast, and she sighed.  Somehow, Nora thinks that Margot actually likes her, would have admired her, maybe, in different circumstances. "Just eat, Nora.  I promise we won't hurt you."

 _At the moment,_ Nora thinks, but its been so long since she got to relax, when she just got to sit and eat, that she gave in.  She took small mouthfuls of everything, chewing slowly, eyes dancing around the room like it could all be taken away any moment.  And it could, replaced with a sudden shove down into ice water or a hand cracking across her face, the kind of gifts they give her to try and force complacency.  It hadn't worked well so far- maybe this is her new approach.

"You're father isn't cooperating." The break in the scrape of silverware is so sudden that it catches her off guard, and just for a moment Nora is confused, about to point out that her father is dead, before she remembers Tony.  "It's quite frustrating."

"Weapons of mass destruction don't respond very well to blackmail."  She raises the glass to her lips again, mouth pressed closed around the rim to keep from drinking any of it.  That's one thing she won't do.  "You should have known that going in."

"Maybe.  But the rules change, when a child is involved."  She raises a hand to the chain on her neck, fingers tipping down to hold the locket.  Nora imagines there's a picture of her son in there, and whenever her resolve starts to melt, all Margot has to do is touch that and be ready for anything it takes.  "But now we're at a predicament."

Margot stands and walks around the table, sits down again right beside her.  "We told the whole world we were going to kill you, you know."  She studies the table instead of looking at Nora, like this ashamed her.  "That we would kill you and broadcast it if Mr. Stark didn't come through.  The public was properly horrified.  But now we're in a bit of a mess, you see.  I didn't intend to kill you, I thought I could let you walk out of here a little bruised but no worse for wear, but now I'll have to show everyone I'm a woman of my word."  She rubbed at her temples, like the prospect of Nora's immanent execution was giving her a headache.  Maybe it was.  Murders had to be stressful.  "But we don't have to do that."

"Of course we don't."  Nora was angry, angrier than she had been the whole time she was here, angry at this woman who fought for war and called it peace.  "We just need Tony to spill some government secrets."

"No.  We just need you to tell us some of his."  It took Nora a moment to understand, but when she did, it wasn't unreasonable- she knew passcodes, and personal information, and files, and had had access to every single avenger.  Information on Vision alone would be a gold mine.  "Join us, Nora, and you can live.  We don't have to tell anyone.  We can pretend you escaped, saved yourself and Peter, and you can be the girl who walked away all over again."

Her voice was soft, seductive with its promise.  Nora thought about saying yes, how easy that would be, how she wouldn't ever have to tell anyone what she had done.  But then she thought of Bucky holding her that night of the party, and Tony raising his glass in a toast as he told everyone she was officially part of the family, and Pepper's smile when she had said yes, and knew she couldn't do that to them.  "I can't."  She didn't cry, and her voice didn't waver.  

"Why?"  It was the voice of a woman in over her head, who couldn't understand how she got there.  "Why won't you?"

"They're my family.  What wouldn't you do for family?"

There's a beat of silence, where Margot and Nora stared at each other, and for once, Nora was sure that Margot envied her, just a little.  "Get her out of here."  This wasn't directed at nora, but the next sentence was.  "The next time you leave that room, you'll be coming here to die.   I hope you reconsider by then."

 

 

 

She gets thrown back in her cell, so hard that she stumbles and falls to her knees, just more bruises to add to her growing collection.  It was the mean guard this time, the one that liked to kick at her and Peter.  She had been personally escorted back by Margot, who waits by the cell as the bars slam shut.  Nora scrambles to her feet and runs to the bars.

"Let Peter go."  She searches her face, for the person she saw back in that room, the one who didn't want to kill a child.  "If you have to kill me, just let him go."

Margot studied her face for a moment, then nods.  "Of course."  He rests her hand on Nora's cheek for a moment, just like Evangeline had, a comfort.  "He won't be harmed."

She was lying.  Nora had been here long enough to tell that much, at least.

 

 

They come for her sooner than she thought they would.

She's ripped out of her cell, dragged by her hair and arms out into the hallway.  Peter is up in an instant, yanking at the bars, and even though she knew it couldn't be true, in her head Nora imagined them bending, molding to his touch.  "Nora!"  He pounds his fist against the wall, and then throws himself at the door, tries to break it open.  "Don't touch her!  Let her go!"

"Peter!"  She breaks free, just for a moment, and runs to him.  He grabs at her, and even though its stupid, even though its pointless, they clutch at each other, his hands cradling her face and her arms wrapping around as much of him as she could reach.  "Peter, I'm sorry.  I'm sorry- I'm so sorry."

"What's going on?"  She never did tell him what they were going to do, couldn't bring herself to say the words and ruin their last night of peace.  "What are they going to do to you?"

"Nothing, nothing Peter, everything's going to be fine, okay, I promise."  She kisses him, which didn't really work but was the thing she wanted at the moment, and she would remember that when they killed her, the tears warm on their faces and the metal of the bars cold where it brushed their skin.  "It's going to be alright."

She got ripped away from him then, down the hall into that elevator.  They didn't bother with the blindfold, which is how she knew that Margot wasn't kidding this time, that this was the end, and she kicked and screamed and punched with everything she had left, even though she had promised herself that when the time came, she would meet it with her head held high, dignity still intact.

"You're a liar, little girl."  It was the mean one, the one that hit her as hard as he could and always held her underwater long than the others, the one with the sour breath and the tobacco teeth.  "You're not going back to him anytime soon."

 

 

 

 

 


	28. A Reprieve

Nora had thought about death a lot.

She thinks it started back when she was little, after her mother died.  She had wanted to know where her mother had gone, if she was up in heaven like she had learned that one year she actually went to sunday school, or if it she was lonely, or maybe everyone was wrong and there wasn't anything waiting for you on the other side, just a black wall that you hit and you're existence blinks out like a burned out light bulb.

And then when the city crumbled underneath her and she was flying through the sky, she started thinking about what if felt like to be actually dying, if you fight it until your last breath or if its like a lullaby ushering you into sleep, or if how you go depends on the person.  She thinks about lungs gasping for air that won't be there and a head pounding, about tears and curses and pain, so much pain from so many places, bones crushed under rubble and ribs cracking from a swipe to the side, burns blistering and the thought of _no, not yet, I have so many things I still need to do_

Those first few days after she became THE GIRL THAT WALKED AWAY, she thought a lot about how she might have died that day.  And then when the darkness crept through the windows and she could hear the loneliness inside her echoing in every creak of the empty house, she started thinking about how she might die in the future- slowly and quickly, in car crashes and with a knife to the chest, crushed under a million pounds of broken things or crashing into the pavement after a leap through the air, some of it she could see coming and some of it she didn't.  It was comforting in a morbid sort of way, but no matter how many times Nora thought about the way she might die, she never quite pictured it like this.

 

 

Evangeline is the one they send to do it.  It's just the two of them in that same white room she had woken up in a few days ago, Nora in the middle an Evangeline right in front of her, loading bullets into a gun one by one.  

"Did you always hate me?"  There is something comforting about it just being her and Evangeline, like she had known that this is where it would end up.  This started with Evangeline- it would end with her too.  "Right from the beginning, that day in class, did you know you were just waiting for the day I would need to die?"

"I don't hate you.  This isn't about you at all."  Evangeline's hands were trembling, just the smallest shake, only noticeable because she was fumbling as she loaded the chambers.  They were just waiting for the call, she knew, that last go ahead when the radio crackles to life and Margot passes down the order.  "I just want you to know that I didn't think this is how it was going to end."

"No."  There is no room for lies in this room, it doesn't seem to be the place that allows it.  "It never is, is it?"

The radio does come alive then, a burst of static cutting the tension between them.  Nora draws in one shuddering breath and then turns to face her, tries not to flinch when she hears the safety click off.

"It's not going to hurt.  Not for long."  Evangeline's hand came up to rest against Nora's cheek again, and Nora leant into it, drawing comfort from here she could.  She was trying to be brave, because if they were filming this she didn't want anyone to know she was afraid.  It would be harder for the people who cared about her, if she looked afraid.  "You won't even know it's coming."

"I forgive you for this."  Nora had come to that conclusion sometime last night, after Peter's breathing had evened out and his hand slipped out of hers and she was left to stare at the wall for a few hours before drifting into an uneasy sleep herself.  It wasn't Evangeline's fault that this is where the two of them were left standing, that the pain had warped her mother like it did.  A lot of lines started to blur when it comes to family.  "I don't blame you for it."

"I don't want your forgiveness.  It's too late for me to worry about something like that."  Her voice sounded tight with unshed tears, and Nora gave the hand on her shoulder a brief squeeze. "Now close you eyes, Nora.  Close your eyes, and think of something lovely."

She does, screwing them up tight, thinking of that night at the gala with Peter's hand spread across her bare back, about Tony's tearful smile when he proposed to Pepper, about MJ choking out a story through giggles, about Natasha and Bucky and Steve and Dr. Banner.  She tries to remember the things that used to be important to her, about how her mother smelled when she hugged her and how Tony's brow would furrow when he was staring down at spreadsheets in the work shop, and Peter, so much about Peter, who was going to be waiting down in that cell until they let him go.  And Nora was so sorry for that, as much as she could bother to be.

Nora waits like that for a second, maybe more, trying not to feel the chill of the metal when it brushes against her, or the sound of Evangeline's harsh breathing in her air, or the safety clicking, on, off, and then back on again as she gathers her nerve.  She's trying not to think about how with each breath the pain was coming, bang and then a bullet, how this was it, this was the end, how there would be no more Nora after today, how she was never going to hug Peter again how she wasn't going to go to Pepper and Tony's wedding, how she wasn't ever going to go to that college and stay in the same dorm as MJ.

There were so many things she wanted to do, and she was about to scream, to tell Evangeline to just do it already, that the waiting was the worst part.

And then the radio came alive again.

 

 

"What?" Nora demanded it, yelling at Evangeline, who was staring down at the radio in her hands.  She wasn't giving a thought to composure anymore, as soon as that gun was taken away and she knew that she didn't have to be brave, she had started taking in great shuddering breaths as the adrenaline rolled over her.  "What is it?"

"A reprieve."  Evangeline's face did not make it sound like this was a good thing.  "Looks like you aren't going to die today, Nora."

 

 

She gets to be relieved for only a matter of minutes, because then the door bursts open, slamming back into the wall so hard that Nora is half surprised it doesn't break.  Margot strides in, those black heels clicking, and behind her, being dragged between four guards, is Peter.

"What are you doing?"  Its the first time since she got thrown into this rom that she felt panicked, and now it crashes down around her, choking her.  She looks at Peter and the bruises on his face and feels like drowning, wondering what he did that was s awful that go him placed in here with her.  "You said you weren't going to hurt him!  You said that, you said it didn't have anything to do with him, you promised!"

There was a wild moment where she thought that everything had been a lie, that maybe Evangeline had been forced into playing a part, that maybe MJ was here somewhere, too, cold and alone. But she doesn't have time for that, so she swallows it and forces the fear down, and tries to reach out to Peter.  She only makes it a few feet before they throw her back.

"Plans change."  Margot grabbed Nora at the arm and lifted her roughly to her feet, turned her around to stare at Peter.  The guard nearest hi sinks his fist into his stomach, and he doubles over, coughing and gasping for the air that had been knocked out of him and for the first time all day Nora starts to sob.  "And now you're going to talk, Nora.  Just tell me what we need to hear, and we never lay another hand on him."

 

 

Nora doesn't end up telling them what they need to hear.  She says a lot of other things, screaming them out over the sound of the punches, pleas and curses and bargains that don't mean anything to Margot.  Margot wants passcodes, and she wants weaknesses, and she wants to know everything about Tony.  And Nora can't tell her any of it, because this is so much bigger than just her and Peter, so much bigger than just the Avengers, even.  If the Avengers fall, then the world falls around them.

People would get hurt, but that's hard to remember when they're hurting Peter, when with every punch she comes one step closer to talking.  "Please!"  Her voice was ripped ragged, and every time she screamed it felt like it cut her up even more.  "Please, don't hurt him, he's not a part of this, you _promised, you promised you promised your promised,_ please stop it!"

It doesn't do any good.  "Just tell us!"  Margot had a wild look to her eye, and Nora wondered what happened to make her so angry.  It was the first time she had seen her lose her composure, and this was more frightening than when she was calm and calculating.   "What do we have to do to make her talk?"

"Evangeline!"  Nora tripped over the name, the syllables rushing out in a sob.  She was still in the room, hidden back in the corner with a hand over her mouth, trying not to watch, trying to hear, like if she doesn't look it won't be happening.  And Nora knows that she doesn't want it to happen, that this was never her plan, that she doesn't want Peter hurt anymore than Nora does and would do anything to stop it.  So she bargains and makes a gamble and hope that Evangeline knows what to do, that some part of the girl that took Nora under her wing and protected her from the big bad world actually exisisted.  "Please, Evangeline, _help_ him!"

And she does, God, thank God she does, peeling herself away from the wall and to her mother.  She's whispering, but Nora can still hear.  "She won't talk.  But he will."  Evangeline is just as good at persuasion as her mother is, and Nora can see it working.  "He loves her, mom.  More than anything.  And he knows enough to make it this whole thing worthwhile."

It's not true, it isn't true and Evangeline is just making it up, making it up to help Nora and free Peter, and Nora finds it funny that after everything Margot was still left alone, and its funny, so funny that she's laughing, and she's still laughing when the first hand comes and hits her around the face, knocks her to her knees and makes stars swim in her vision.

 

 

Somewhere along the line, she had started to cry.  And then she stopped crying, and Peter started, started screaming and sobbing.  And Nora was quiet, except for when she laughed, because she couldn't seem to stop laughing even though she couldn't remember what was funny.

"I don't know anything!"  He was helpless, and the guilt swallows her up again, that he had got swept up in this just because he wanted to take her to prom.  "I'm just, I'm just a friend, I had no idea about any of this, please just stop hurting her."

"You two are precious."  Margot's voice was dripping with venom, and she screws her face up voice twisted into a high pitched voice, like a child's.  " _Don't hurt him, don't hurt him, take me instead-_ please.  It's pathetic.  And besides, we both know that you know more than you're letting on, Peter."

"Okay, okay, fine!"  He threw his hands in the air, and the guards let him go.  "I'm his intern, Mr. Stark likes me, is that what you want to know?  I've been in his house, I know what his workshop looks like.  Are these the things you want?"

Nora just has enough time for her stomach to sink, because she didn't remember that part, that Peter actually did know things.  She's about to call out, tell him not to say another word, but then- "But that's not what we're talking about, Mr. Parker."  Margot sounds happy again, which scares Nora.  "Why don't you tell everyone what I really want to know."

 

 

She hears it like she's underwater.  About Peter being Spider-Man, about how he got bit, about how he made the webbing.  And then how Mr. Stark thought up this cover story for him even though he was actually just being brought in to fight Steve Rogers, and ever since, every time he's off being Mr. Stark's intern, he's actually fighting crime. 

The awful thing is that she isn't surprised  The news settles into her like she had always known it, like it finally made all those missing pieces add up.  But she can't shake the thought of her standing in the middle of that ruined street and the boy in the mask staring back at her, saying how sorry she is, how so many times Peter had told her how sorry he is in that exact same voice but never really told her what he was actually sorry for.

There were so many things she hadn't really understood when he said them, so many lies she hadn't even known he was telling. And here it was, every dirty secret spilled out on the white tiled floor.

"You see?"  Margot says, and she is holding Nora's head up to make her pay attention, but her head was swimming so bad that she couldn't see, not really.  "You see why they can't be trusted?"

And she did.  In that moment, she really, really did.

 

 


	29. The After

It turns out that Peter is right, because the Avengers do come for them in a wake of explosives and vigilante justice, but not in time to save Nora.  She'd taken more than she could bear, this time, and even though she had promised herself she would be brave, she couldn't, not for one second longer, and the tears slipped out of her eyes and over her cheeks and into her mouth, burning when they drip across her cuts and bitter on her tongue.

"You killed them."  She spits the words out in the middle of blood and tears and they scatter across the floor, falling into every corner of this horrible white room.  The blood was dripping off her, scarlet splats between her fingers, but Nora didn't pay any attention to that.  "You did it.  You made me into this."

Because he did, this was all him, Spider-Man, he killed her father and made her into THE GIRL WHO WALKED AWAY, like some comic book freak, and he got her sent to Tony and that's why she became friends with him, that's why she was friends with Evangeline, that's why she kissed him that night and why she went to that party she tries not to think about and why she's here with every part of her screaming in pain.  _everything, everything, everything_ came back to him.

"Nora,"  He's got tears in his eyes and his voice cracks when he speaks, throat tight around the tears.  If this had been an hour ago she would have been racing into his arms, but now she only flinches back.  _He doesn't look like a superhero,_ she thinks, and wonders why it matters.  Tony never looks very heroic outside the suit, either.  "Please, Nora."

"Don't touch me."  She tries to push herself up and away from him, but her arm folds beneath her, sending her crashing back down the floor.  "You killed them."  She repeated, her tongue twisting in her mouth and tripping the words, clumsy in her mouth.  "You killed him."

He cries, then, and even though she can hear Evangeline trying to calm both of them down ( _because she's still here, for some reason, she really should be running, but that's not important_ ), but Nora doesn't listen, just turns her back on him and stares at the wall.

 

 

Tony is the one to find her.  He isn't wearing his suit, so when he opens the door and runs to her it's just him, his real voice and his human hands on her shoulders, pulling her close.  He's crying, too, and so is Wanda when her face floats up behind his shoulders.  So many tears, but Nora doesn't have any of her own left to shed.

"I didn't tell them anything."  She lifts her good hand up to grab at his shoulder, because it seemed desperately important that he know that.  "No matter what they did, I didn't tell them anything."

"I know."  He chokes on the words and holds her tight, and she doesn't complain even though it hurts, because this is one of those _thank god you're safe I thought you were dead_ hugs.  "I know you didn't.  You were so brave."  He doesn't seem to know what to do now that he had found her, not when every touch causes her pain and she's so weak her head swims when she lifts it.  "I knew you were going to be brave."

"I wasn't."  She's crying then, because apparently she wasn't out of tears, after all.  "I tried to be, but I wasn't."

It's all the permission he needs to gather her up again, and in the distance she can hear more screams and explosions.  She wants to tell him not to hurt the one guard, the nice one, the one who gave her the food and showed her pictures of his kids and never hit her even when Margot told him to, but then she thought of all the others, and she just wanted the whole thing to burn to the ground.

"It's alright," He tells her, just like he had after every shitty moment of her life, and just like he would for all the ones that would follow.  "You're safe now."

Safe, she is learning, is a very unreliable world.

 

 

 

She dreams of falling ( _or maybe flying, she can't tell the difference anymore_ ) and when she wakes she is in another white room.  For a moment she panics, her heart rate kicking and her breathing fast, but then she notices the IV in her hand and the monitor beside her, and she falls back into the pillows, because here, for a moment, she is safe.

There is a cast around her wrist, and something wrapped around her ribs, and she can feel the bandage around her waist, but Nora still has to be forced back into the bed when the nurses find her.  "Stop it,"  She says, but it is weak, and she can't beat them back even when she tries.  "I need.."

"What do you need?"  The nurse is kind in a tough way, one of the woman that will stand and weather their way through whatever horrible thing life might send their way.  It makes her relax a bit, settle down into her hands, and Nora lets herself be pressed into the bed.  "We can get it for you."

"I need..." _I need this not to have happened, I need Evangeline to have been the friend I thought she was, I want Peter, I want him and not Spider-Man but now they're one in the same, I want to talk to Hayley and make sure she's okay because I haven't seen her since that day we fell out of the sky, I want my mom to come and hold me but she's gone just like everyone else, I want, I want, I want._ "Tony,"  She decides, and the word falls from her lips with all the rest of her strength.  "I want Tony."

 

 

Tony comes and sits beside her, but they don't talk.  There will be time for that later, when her bruises have melted back down into her skin and the ache isn't quite so heavy in her bones.  He brings her news from the team, and she talks about her favorite nurses even though the broken jaw makes her words slur.  They don't talk about what might be happening to Evangeline, or about what she learned from Peter, or when she's going to be let out of the hospital.

They watch tv instead, mostly Law and Order SVU reruns, over and over and over, each new intro marking the start of another hour.  Tony hates it, but Nora loves it- it's the most reliable thing in the world, to be able to find an episode if you flip through enough channels.

"Why are we watching this?"  He asks again, after the seventh episode finishes and she switches from channel 28 to channel 21 to watch the night time marathon.  "It's really an awful show to watch."

"I like it."  There's no bite to her words, because she doesn't need bite anymore- he will not take this away from her.  "They always get the bad guys at the end."

He doesn't argue.

 

 

"You're going to be fine, you know."  It's Bucky's turn to watch her, because as the days creep on and it gets closer to the release date, Tony has returned back to work.  The Avengers are taking turns watching her.  Bucky is her favorite. "It's going to suck, for a while.  And you're never going to forget it, even if you want to.  But-,"  He's flexing the fingers in his metal hands, over and over and over.  She wonders if he can feel the ghost of the things he's done worked into the metal, or if the motion chases them away.  "But you're you.  A changed you, but still you.  And they can't take that away."

He's not looking at her, so she just stares at him as he opens and closes his metal hand.  The light of the tv is flickering across his face, throwing his features into sharp relief as the shadows play over his skin.  _He should be dead,_ she thought, and its the first time she began to think about all the people in her life who should be dead but aren't.  She's one of them, now- the doctors have watched the video, too, and said that that much time underwater should have killed her.  It's why she's being kept in here for so long, to check for damage to the brain.

"I'm not fine."  She says, and her voice is brittle, breakable.  She thinks of Peter and how he cried, everything they did to him, and then how the thing that seemed to hurt the most was the words she spit out at him.  "I don't think I've ever been fine."

 

 

When she gets released from the hospital, they don't go home.  They go to some SHIELD complex instead, where Natasha leads her to what might be an interrogation room or might be a prison cell, and they look through a two way mirror to where Evangeline was sitting.

Before, Evangeline looks larger than life, but now she just looks small.  "Did she say why she did it?"

Natasha laid a hand on her arm, the gesture more gentle than Natasha had ever been.  Nora doesn't like to be treated like she might break, but right now, she needs it.  "She can't ever hurt you again."

 _She didn't hurt me before,_ she wanted to say, but she already did that, during a conversation with Tony where they screamed at each other until she cried.  _It was only her mother, all she did was because her mother told her too, don't you see she had no choice?_

"That's not why I'm asking."  She rapped on the glass, once, and Evangeline's head jerked up.  She wasn't hurt- at least Tony treated his prisoners better than Margot.  "What did she say?"

"Her mother."  Natasha's voice was guarded, like she didn't want to say too much.  "She said that she was... her brother died when she was five.  And after that, she was raised to be the dagger in her mother's hand."

It was a bit dramatic, and more poetic than Natasha, and had Tony's words written all over it.  "Then let her go."  Nora rapped on the glass some more, testing out a beat.  Evangeline's lips twitched into a smile when she recognized it, until Natasha forced her hand away.  

"She almost killed you."

"Her mother almost killed me."  Nora shrugged, then turned, leaving Natasha to run after her.  "She's a trained weapon.  And she's good at what her mother taught her.  SHIELD should take her in, straighten her out."

"They don't do that." Natasha spluttered.  Nora didn't know if it was because of her suggestion or because Nora was the one making it.  It must have been surprising for everyone, to see that Nora didn't blame her at all.  "They don't just take in every stray kitten that comes by-,"

"And what they did with you, that was so different?"  Nora stepped into the elevator before her and pressed the button for it to close.  It was a gesture more petty than effective, seeing how easily she could slip in beside her, but Natasha just stood there, leaving Nora to stare at her shocked expression as the doors closed.

 

 

Happy drives her home, and Tony sits in the seat beside her, both of them trying to keep up as easy chatter despite the tension rolling off of her.  When she gets home, she ignores them both and goes straight to her room, ignoring the greeting from JARVIS as she goes.

With the door slammed behind her, it almost feels like nothing has changed.  But it has, because her books are covered with dust and her laptop is missing, and she can almost see the imaginary tracks left behind by all the people who must have combed their way through every inch of this room.  And her fridge was empty, which was awful, because it meant she would have to face Tony much sooner than she preferred.

Her phone lights up, with Peter's name on the ID, just like it had been for the past two weeks, even if the calls were getting farther and fewer between.  She doesn't pick up, just watches it go, and has to promise herself she won't listen to the message he leaves.  (But she does, she had for every one of them, clutching the phone in her hands while Tony slept in the chair beside her hospital bed, over and over and over.)

 _Sleep,_ she thinks, and climbs under the covers like she had a million nights before, but this time it didn't matter how comfortable the mattress or how soft the sheets, because she is too used to cold air and a hard floor, so she drags herself out of bed and into the closet, and its only when she shuts the door that she can really let herself breath.

 

 

 

 


	30. Tony

He thought he knew what being afraid meant, but he didn't.

He didn't really know that, not until the night he sent his daughter off to prom with a boy he cared about very much and neither of them came back, when he learned that a girl he let into his home and tried to treat like family had just been a wolf in sheep's clothing, when he was told, in no uncertain terms, that he could either give this woman what they wanted or he would watch his daughter die.

And he couldn't give them what they wanted, he knew that, even though he wanted to hold Nora in his arms and tell her that she's okay, even if it meant the whole world around them got burned down to ashes.  He would do that, if it meant that she would be safe, and Pepper would stand by him, and they would rebuild, no matter what hell it brought down on everyone else.  But Natasha was there when the offer was made and she saw it in his eyes, so suddenly it wasn't his decision anymore.

"They'll kill her,"  He told her, after he had made a lunge for his phone and she had thrown him back onto the ground, after he had struggled to his feet and told her to go to hell, to move out the way, that it was his company and he'd do what he wanted, damn it.  "They'll kill her, and I'll have to bury her, and I will never forgive you if you let that happen, do you understand that?  They are going to hurt her, and I can stop it."

But it wasn't as simple as that, because he was more than a parent, he was Iron Man, he was a hero, he was the world's last line of defense and that meant certain sacrifices, like watching everything you loved burn and still pushing on, all in the name of the greater good.  You could not trade one life for thousands, no matter how much you wanted to, and he knew that, even as Natasha had to hold him back and talk him down.  she knew it too, he could tell by the tears gathering in her eyes and slipping down her face, the first sign of honest emotion he thought he had seen from her.  "They will,"  she said, because Natasha was built on pain and sacrifice and never saw the good that can be in a lie.  "They will."

So he didn't take the call, or arrive at their meetings, or send any confidential papers that would have gotten him put in jail.  Instead, he just sits in at the end of a table filled with people and listens to what they're going to do, all of it for the good of the nation and none of it for the good of his daughter, occasionally accepting a cup of coffee that scalds his tongue or shaking Steve's arm off his shoulder. And that's where he is, when the video comes in and he watches Nora be pushed down into the water, hears her brief scream and the sudden silence, watches the water splash and her legs  kick, and when they let her come back up for air, he watches her choke and gasp and splutter for air.  It reminds him of his stay in Afghanistan, and he wonders if that is intentional.  _You can save her, Mr Stark,_ and it echoes in his ears even after the feed cuts off.

 

 

 

Those are the bad parts, the ones that started the whole thing, but there are more that came over the course of the next few days.

Like when he pulled up to the front of the school, tires squealing, and MJ got to her feet and ran to him, her head bleeding and shock blanket around her shoulders falling to the ground, saying, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry Mr. Stark, I couldn't stop it_ and when he said it was okay, when he promised he would get all three of them back, she pulled back and squinted at him and said _two of them, you only need to get two of them back_ and his heart stopped, because he thought that meant something very different than what she was trying to tell him.

Or when the police brought Peter's Aunt May to headquarters showed up and walked right over to him, her shoulders straight and that awful purse swinging from the crook of her elbow, and slapped him across the face so hard the sound seemed to cut through the room.  "You promised to keep him safe," she spits, and then she is crying, melting right before his eyes, and there is no comfort he can give her that she would actually believe.

Or when he gets the phone call in the middle of the night, when he had finally decided to get some sleep, and there's nothing on the other line, just the kind of breathing that comes when you're trying to choke back tears.  He's confused and tired and he was just so damn scared, so he thought it was Nora, he really did, he even said her name into the phone.  But that wasn't who it was.  "No, Mr. Stark."  Her voice was trembling and so small, which was wrong, because she always seemed like someone who could not be afraid.  "It's Evangeline."  

He talks to her all night, taking down notes on the defenses and the location and what he could expect when they go there.  And at the end, he asks her why, and he could hear the sigh crackle through the phone.  "Because they were going to kill her, and I never thought that would happen," Evangeline says, and she really crying now, despite her best efforts not to.  "And now that I've told you this, they're going to kill me, too.  Good bye, Mr. Stark."

Or when they crash in through the doors of that awful place, with its white walls and bright lights and guards that don't ever talk, not even when they die.  He was the one to meet Margot, and she died laughing, with blood bubbling up over her lips and falling down her chin, and he feels guilty, because what she turned into was because of him.  He had said that you make your own monsters, and he's yet to be proved wrong.

But it ends up okay, because he finds Nora in the end, even if she's bruised and broken and splayed across the ground like an abandoned rag doll.  He gathers her up in his arms and wants that to be the end, but it won't be, because there are screams and gunshots sounding down the hallway, and Evangeline has slipped out of the room, and Peter is curled up in the corner, crying and beaten and healing but still looking so, so sad.

"It's okay,"  He tells her, and he wonders if he will ever be able to say that without it sounding like a lie.  "It's all going to be okay."

 

 

Now it's just hospital rooms and reruns of the same bad crime shows, endless meals of orange jello and Dr. Pepper because its the only thing she'll eat, nights where she wakes up screaming and he has to hold her down until the nurses come in to sedate her.  And conversations, things he would have never thought he would have to talk about, but she starts them, chipping away at every piece of himself that he thought would have made it through his life without breaking apart.

"He's Spider-Man."  She dives into it, just like she had all the other things, like her questions about Afghanistan and the wedding and all the people he had killed, if he was guilty, if he thought she'd be able to make it through her life without seeing shadows everywhere she turned.  "He's Spider-Man, and he killed my parents, and I _hated_ him, you knew that, but you let this happen anyways."

He's not sure what the "this" was, if it was letting her care for him so much, or letting them go to prom, or if she was talking about being stolen away on what was supposed to be a night to remember.  Tony decides it doesn't matter.  

"He didn't kill your parents."  He rubs at his face, tries to scrub the sleep out of his eyes.  there had been a time where he would be tempted to go for a week without sleep, anything to keep the memories and the nightmares at bay, running, running, running.  Now, Tony doesn't know how he did it.  "you know that."

She turned to stare at him, and Nora looked ghastly in the light, with the bruises shadowing her face and the swelling in her lip making her smile look a little frightful.  "I know."

Something tells him them that that's not really what it was about.

 

 

They found Evangeline on a room in the top floor, looking out the window with a gun in her hand.  Only she wasn't intending on using it on any of them, not even Clint, who had been the one to find her.  She was holding it to her head instead, pressing the cold metal against her temple so hard that it would leave a bruise.

"She kept switching it,"  Clint would tell him later, when they watched her stare at the wall in the interrogation room.  That's all she had done, stare at the wall, refusing to talk to anyone.  "Like she wanted to find the best way to do it."

"Did she seem upset?"  Tony wasn't sure why it was important.  That first night, when he heard where Nora had been taken, he had wanted to kill her, to have her be hurt, to stick her in a prison so far away she would never see the light of day again. But now, looking at her, she just looked like a little girl.  And like Nora had said- the lines of right and wrong seem to blur when family is involved.

"She seemed ready."  Clint had told him, and that was worse.

 

 

He goes to see Peter a full three weeks after he had rescued him.

Tony had wanted to take care of him then, right at the moment he saw him, when there were bruises on his face and blood at his feet and he looked scared, scared and shaken and small.  He didn't, because Peter had some super spidey healing in his body that would knit his bones back together and shed his broken skin, but Nora didn't, and Nora was lying across the ground looking like she would never get up again.  So he had ran to her, and she was the one that he promised it would be okay, and he left Peter all alone.

He was sorry for that.  He was sorry for so many things, but that was one of them, for forgetting for even a moment that even though he had these powers he was still a kid before anything else, one that was just as capable of breaking as Nora was.  And he had wanted to go see him, that first night when Bucky sent him away from the hospital ( _when she wakes, she'll need the real you, not a shadow one with too much coffee and too little sleep) ,_ but when he got to the apartment his Aunt May had only shaken her head.

"He wants to see you," She had said, and that made something in his chest break, beause he cared for this kid more than he ever meant to.  He never plans to care about anyone, but he keeps finding more room for them.  "But I think it would be better for him if he never knew that you were here."

Tony couldn't argue, not when he was always taking the kid home bruised and broken and with a few more nightmares, but then Aunt May had called him up crying at four A.M., asking him to please, please just help him because she couldn't figure out how.  He thinks that it might have been the first time she had asked anyone for help with Peter in her life.  And he said that he would be there, of course, he just had to take care of something first.

And now he's here, sitting on Peter's bed and watching him stare at the wall.  He had tried to start conversations, but every attempt falls flat, the words landing on the ground between them and not leaving, just piling up, until his voice falters and the words die in his throat.  "It's not your fault, you know."  It was the only thing that he could offer him, this promise that no matter what, he was blameless.  "She's angry, but she'll come around.  She's just a little broken."

 _And what am I?_   Peter could have spit, but he didn't, just gave one sharp, jerky nod and then turned away to hide his tears.  But Tony had already seen them, was already reaching forward, and even though he was no good at this, he was pulling Peter to him and wrapping an arm around his shoulders.  

"I'm  sorry. God, Mr. Stark, I'm so sorry."  He was choking out the words, chest heaving, and Tony thinks of all the things that FRIDAY had picked up that day when he found them in that white room, the broken fingers and cracked ribs and the concussion, all these things that healed in a matter of minutes but would still leave their invisible scars.  "I couldn't save her.  I tried, but I didn't."

"It's alright."  They were rocking back and forth on the bed, like he would have done if Peter was a little kid.  He wondered how many times he sat here in the dark, choking on his fears and staring at the ceiling while Aunt May was at work, because there was no team of Avengers or Happy or Pepper cycling through to check on him.  He wondered which way was better.  "You did alright, kid."

"What kind of a hero am I, if I can't save people?"  The words were bitter and broken, the kind of sentence that comes from realizing for the first time that you can't save everyone, no matter how hard you try.  "I've got all this...." _You've got a burden, kid, you just haven't figured that out yet._   "I've got this power, but I couldn't do anything with it.   I couldn't save either of us.  What kind of hero does that make me?"

Tony just tightened his hold on him, wishing that he would have left him where he belonged, swinging his webs through Queens and fighting men whose worst crimes were stealing purses from little old ladies.  Maybe he would be happier, then.  Safer.

 _But this is greatness,_ A voice in him whispered, one that sounded like Yinsen back in the cave, hushed and echoing. _This is glory, and its the price you have to pay for being great._

"The human kind,"  Tony said instead, because he would have given up the spotlight and the glory to have his kids not go through what they did.  "The kind that stands back up, no matter how hard of a hit he just took."

They sit like that for a while, until the shaking in his shoulders stops and Peter pulls away, his eyes red but breathing even.  "Nora won't answer my calls."

And of course that's where they end up at, because the two of them keep circling around each other.  "She will."

 

 

When he sleeps, his dreams are full of phantoms.

He sees Yinsen in that cave and hears blame that the real man never would have thought to assign.  He watches Rhodey fall, over and over and when he hit the ground, he doesn't get back up.  He hears Cap standing chest to chest with him and telling him that he wasn't the hero type, has Natasha tell him that he was putting them all in danger, watches Dr. Banner turn his back.

Guilt, is what his dreams are made of, when he sees the day that Peter ends up facing a battle too big and has to face Aunt May knowing that he was the one who drew him in, when he watches his hand stretching out to Pepper but doesn't catch her.  Guilt for things that happened and things that didn't, people that he was responsible for and the ones who were just collateral damage, all those lives ruined that he could not possibly build back together.

And now he has a new nightmare, one that came to him across the video screen, where he sees his daughter shoved under the water, watch her kick and struggle until she goes limp and the water stops moving because they misjudged what she could take.  He sees her beaten and bloody, listens to her cry in a cold, dark cell, imagines her with a gun to his chest. _You can save her, Mr. Stark,_ echoes in his mind.

He wakes up to the dark with Pepper beside him, and there is panic spreading across his tongue like something bitter.  A recording plays the date and time and location, but it is not him that he is worried for anymore, so he slips out of bed and down the stairs, waving away the security measures and pushing open the door.

Nora is on the ground.  She always is, anymore, like the comfort of her bed has turned to knives digging into her back.  But she's asleep, which is more than he would have been able to say a few weeks ago.

"You're alright,"  He whispers, and it is only the empty room that hears him.  Tony says it every time he checks in on her, and it's turned into a sort of prayer, even though none of his have ever been answered before.  "We're all going to be alright."

 


	31. A Half Hearted Attempt at Moving On

They decide to finish out the rest of the year at home.

Nora isn't really sure who decides it, exactly, but then all her books from her locker arrive on her bedside table while she takes a nap in the closet, and then emails from her teachers and some social worker  that was probably on SHIELD'S payroll, and a kid that was apparently their class Valedictorian and a big fan of the Avengers was coming over every day to help her through her math homework.

(Tony could have done that, but Nora has the feeling that Pepper has been trying to make her socialize as much as possible, thus the very blonde haired and very tall and very charismatic boy coming and sitting at her kitchen table every other night, so polite that he doesn't even hold it against her when she curses at him and cries over calculus homework.  She thinks that Tony might be paying him.)

"You don't have to go to school,"  Pepper tells her, fidgeting with the ends of the blanket instead of looking at Nora's face.  She always looks like she's going to cry whenever Pepper looks at her, so maybe its a good thing.  Nora doesn't think she can handle Peppers tears today.  "I wouldn't expect you to, after everything.  The doctors aren't even sure you can.  But you can't hide yourself away in your closet and call that living.  It's just not going to happen."

"What do you want me to do?"  She wasn't hiding herself in the closet all the time.  Sometimes she goes for walks, long ones, where she picks up pebbles and runs them over the lines of her palms for no reason at all, or when she goes down to the garage to work on a car that Tony only bought for her to tear apart.  She's trying to put it back together, but it isn't working.  

"I want you to be a kid, okay?"  Pepper's eyes were a little watery, and that more than anything is what made her agree as easily as she did.  "Just.. just don't hide, alright?  I've seen what that does to someone."

 

 

 

Nora had agreed, but she didn't actually intend to stick with it until Tony came to talk to her.  That's when he talked about dying from blood poisoning and trying to fix it on his own even though the answer had been in Fury's pocket the whole time, about not pushing away everyone who loves you, when he almost became a danger to everyone because he got drunk while wearing the suit.  About how when something bad happens, no matter how unfair, you can either let it break you or you can rise from the ashes, just to spit everyone.

"But you became a superhero,"  She had told him, part angry and part exasperated, because it's really unfair that her legal guardian can just respond with _Well, I'm Iron Man_ every time she wants to sulk.  "I'm just a kid."

But he wins, eventually, like he always does, so she starts to leave her door open and responds to all those texts and miss calls that she hadn't been looking at.  She reads her books again and tries going to a therapist before she remembers that she hates them, and even thinks of calling Peter, even though she never actually does it.  And when she tells Tony that maybe it would be better if people would just show up and talk to her, they do,  revolving door of people that she really wishes would just stay away.

MJ comes first.  Nora hadn't invited her, or even talked to her, because MJ was tied up with Peter and she wasn't sure if that would pull him back into her life.  She also didn't want to keep Peter's secrets for him, because MJ was another person that he was probably lying to.  Or maybe she was another person that had been lying to Nora.  But then one day the elevator opened and there she was, throwing herself down the bed that Nora no longer touches, wrinkling her nose at the tv and reaching for the remote.

"Were you really watching this?" She said, flicking through the channels, never mind that Tony and Natasha had both come out of the garage to check on Nora when they heard the voices and were now staring at MJ like she had grown a second head.  It wasn't the way that most people handled seeing their PTSD ridden friend for the first time since her kidnapping, but it was MJ's way.  "It's horrible."  And then, like she had just then realized that Nora wasn't sitting by her desk like normal- "What are you doing in the closet?"

 

 

MJ stays.  Nora can't really seem to get rid of her, even on the rare moments she wants to.  For the most part, she just reads and offers slightly insensitive suggestions about doctors and therapy and not sleeping in the closet.  But sometimes she gets softer and looks at Nora like she wants to say something but can't find the words, so she just settles with punching her in the shoulder instead.  ( _She can take it,_ she had said, when Bucky had been visiting and looked at her like she had just punched a kitten. _Don't you know how tough she is?_ )

It isn't enough to feel like normal, but its something.  "Is it helping?"  Pepper asks her, during their weekly brunch date.  Nora's decided to take up cooking as a hobby, because it was something that could distract her without any chance of triggering any sort of panic attack, but she was sort of awful at it.  Today, they were eating slightly crunchy waffles.  "Having her around?"

"I think so."  It was, really, to have her over all the time, an incessant chattering to anchor her to reality when her mind wants to slip away.  That's the best description of it that Nora can think of, like her eyes see one thing and her train of thought drifts to a bunch of memories she'd rather not think about it, until she's cowering on the floor gasping for air.  "When she's here, anyways."

"And when she isn't?"  When she isn't, Nora doesn't move, just stays in her closet and tries to do homework, eyes trained on the door because at least then she could see the enemy coming.  She cowers, this panic rising up inside of her and paralyzing her, until she doesn't think she could move. Nora doesn't say that out loud, would never admit to it, but she thinks Pepper sees the truth anyways.

"I'll get through it."  A deep, steadying breath, the kind that the therapists told her about during the one session she actually went to.  "I always do."

 

 

Wanda moves in on official Anvengers business out of no where two weeks later, and even though Nora knows it is a very transparent attempt at giving her a stay-in babysitter, she is grateful.  It's easier to talk her mind down when Wanda is with her, because she can't help but think that if Wanda had been with her that day, no one would have come close to taking her.

"I shouldn't be doing this,"  Wanda says, with Nora's head in her lap and the red pulsing between her fingertips.  "It's a bad thing to get used to."

"Please."  They'd only done it once, before, and that was at Tony's request, because no one could get Nora to stop screaming and she had worked herself up to the verge of being sick.  They would sedate her in the hospital, but here in the tower they only had Wanda and her  magic.  One touch from her and she'll be floating.  "I just want to sleep through the night, just this once."

Wanda stares at her for a moment, and then settles her hands down around Nora's temples.  Maybe it was the shadows under her eyes that convinced her, or the shaking in her fingers, or maybe just the memory of being woken night after night with screams.  

"Go to sleep,"  Wanda whispers, and when the light floats away, Nora finds herself doing just that.

 

 

They're in the closet when MJ finally brings it up.

The closet isn't actually that bad of a place, now, ever since Wanda stuffed it full of blankets and pillows, and Pepper hung a string of fairy lights across the ceiling.  It was a soft place, now.  A safe place.

"I know that you know now."  MJ says, and her words are hesitant for the first time that Nora can remember.  "About Peter being Spiderman."

"You knew?"  nora had suspected, but it still hurt to have it confirmed, that all of the people she trusted were working together to keep this secret.  "This whole time?"

"He didn't want me to know."  There wasn't an apology in her voice, but Nora didn't expect one. MJ doesn't like to be wrong.  "But I found out.  He needed someone on his side."  Her hands reached out for Nora in the darkness, wrapped around her wrist and held her there, like she had been worried Nora might have run away.   "There have been very few people in his life who were on his side and stayed, Nora."

There was something blocking her throat, now, and she could feel the tightening in her chest that meant the panic was on its way.   "I don't care."  There were tears slipping down her face, and Nora was so, so sick of tears.  Every time she thought she had run out, there would just be more on their way.  "Don't you get it?  He started this, this whole damn thing, and I hate him."

"You don't."  MJ's voice was hushed, quiet, and sensible, the way it always is when one of them went off in a rage or panic.  She always brought them back.   "You don't even dislike him."

"I want to."  The tears were bitter.  "I want to, because whether it was his fault or not, he brought me into this life, he was the one I saw that started this whole mess, and I could hate him because he was Spiderman, he was someone to blame.  But then I met Peter, and he was so sweet and perfect and everything I needed and he made me fall in love with him, MJ, that's what he did, even though he knew I blamed, and if nothing else, even if I love him, I do hate him for that, alright?  I've always hated him for that."

"Okay."  It is what people always say when she surprises them with her anger and her pain and they don't have another response, an endless recitation of platitudes that don't mean anything. "Okay."

 

 

 

 


	32. The Fate of Evangeline

"You could take these, you know"  When she looks over, Bucky is holding her medicine out to her with his metal hand.  The pills rattle around in the little orange container as he shakes them at her, and he only puts them down when he glares at him.  "They might help."

Bucky was on a babysitting duty, because everyone else had responsibilities to attend to and he was pretty much at Tony's mercy as to where he was assigned.  He was really bad at it, too, worse than the others, because he basically lets her do anything she wants.  The others will come and drag her out when she spends too long in the closet, or force her to eat when she just picks at her food, or pulls the tablet out of her hands when she looks up news reports about her kidnapping.  Bucky just tells her to do what she needs to, and eats all the food out of the fridge. 

He'd never tried to tell her what to do before, so it stung a bit, to have him rattle a bottle of pills at her.  She didn't want them, because she was afraid of what they might do to her, like they were going to take her brain and roll it flat, roll out all the wrinkles where the mistakes might be happening.  Or maybe they would just melt the bad parts down, cage it off, quarantine it where the bad thoughts can't touch her. Either way, she doesn't like handing her mind over to the mercy of a pill.

"How do you know?"  She was always ready for a fight now in a way that she hadn't been before, like everyone was a nuisance ready to be cut down.  "You ever had to take them?"

"No."  He shrugs in a way that was meant to be casual but didn't quite make it there.  "But I've had to do a lot of other stuff to work through what happened to me.  Gets a lot easier once you stop being stubborn."

 

 

She hadn't said anything then, but later that night, when she's curled up on her closet floor, she thinks of the response she wanted. _It's different for you,_ she would have said. _You fell a million feet and had your arm ripped off and a murderous hunk of metal stuck in its place, got stuck in ice and got used as a robot for a bunch of psychos, and then you woke up in a different century and had to deal with the guilt of crimes you don't even remember, on top of regular wartime PTSD.  You deserve to have to work things through.  I should be able to make it though this on my own._

Nora's fine, really.  Everyone's worried about her, but she's handling it, without any of the therapy sessions or pills or extra help that they wanted to give her. _Except,_ one traitorous little voice says, even louder than all the other voices.  It must have been waiting for the excuses to stop rolling. _Except for the fact that you're sleeping in the closet.  That's not fine.  That' s crazy._

"It's a nice closet,"  She says out loud, and that's crazy, too, that she's arguing with herself over whether or not she's really okay.  "I could sleep in my bed if I wanted to."

Nora stares at the ceiling for a while longer, then gathers the blankets around her shoulders and moves to her bed, collapsing down on top of the covers. _Just sleep,_ she tells herself. _Sleep in bed like a normal person, and then you can go tell everyone that you're fine._

(She closes her eyes but doesn't sleep, and in the morning its a relief when Tony comes down to shake her awake for breakfast.  And when she's done eating, she walks to the cabinet and unscrews the lid on that stupid bottle of pills, tips one of them into her palm and gulps it down, in front of Tony and Bucky and anyone else who might have been watching.)

 

 

She finds the file the way she always finds out things no one wants to tell her: from Wanda.

Not that Wanda actually told her what was in it, just that she thought she might want to go down to the workshop and stand by the door and see what Tony was working on.  So Nora did, and when she did she saw Evangeline's face flash across the monitors, along with an agent number and Fury's scrawled signature.

"I'll handle her," Natasha was saying.  It took her a moment for her to recognize Natasha's voice, because it was a little warped over the phone line, but it was her.  "It's going to be taken care of."

When Natasha said that she would take care of things, that could mean any number of things, from cleaning up the dishes after dinner or dumping a body in the river.  And she didn't want that applied to her best friend, even though she ended up being a secret agent murderer ( _another reason that giving in and listening to the therapists might have been a good idea_ ), so she gave up on not being seen and burst into the room.

"What are you doing to her?"  The panic was building up again, her eyes swimming and lungs freezing, but she forced the words out anyways.  "Don't you dare kill her, Natasha!"

"Nora."  Tony blinked, and then he was walking to her with that concerned look on his face, the only way that anyone was looking at her.  He was taking her by the shoulders and trying to steer her towards the chair so she could sit down, but she wrenched herself away.

"No! I don't care what she did, you know it wasn't her fault!"  Nora would take down Cap and Fury and everyone else herself if it came to it, she wouldn't let her be murdered just because her mother was a psychopath.  "You kill her, I break something!"

It was a lame threat, and they both knew it, considering that whatever she broke Tony could just buy again a million times over, but she needed to say something.   "I'm not going to _kill_ her, Nora."  Natasha's voice held an edge of impatience but mostly amusement.  "I promise."

"And I'm supposed to be okay with that now?" Nora threw her hands up, but she sat in the chair like Tony wanted to.  "You lie for a living, Natasha."

"She does."  Tony was at her shoulder again and he was shoving a file in front of her, a paper one, a real one.  She read it quickly, about trained and transfers and indoctrination, about entering her into a new class of initiates as soon as possible, personally overseen by Natasha Ramanov.  "But I don't."

"Remember that thing we said about lost kittens?"  Natasha's voice was warm, and she apparently didn't hold it against Nora that she called her a liar.  "I pulled some strings."

"Oh."  And then- "I want to see her."

 

 

Tony told her it was a bad idea.  MJ said it was a bad idea.  Pepper told her it was a bad idea.  But Nora said she was doing it anyways.

"She was my friend."  Nora was stubborn about that, about sticking to her no matter what she had done, and the only one who seemed to even come close to understanding that was Steve and Bucky, but they both told her that it was probably still a bad idea.  "I just want to make sure she's okay."

Which is how she ends up waiting on the tarmac beside one of SHIELD's planes, standing beside Fury and his eye patch.  "She would have killed you, you know."   He didn't seem intent on telling her it was a bad idea.  She'd met him three times, and he always seemed like the kind of guy who wouldn't know a bad idea if it hit him in the face.  "There wasn't any plan tucked up her sleeve to get you or the boy out of there."

He calls Peter the boy, even though he must have known by now that he was Spiderman.   Maybe he had just been warned by Tony not mention.  "She did save me."  Fury always looks impressed by her, but he had seemed a bit more today, when she shoved off Natasha's offer to help and walked straight across the airfield to him, even though they both knew it was killing her to walk on her own.  "She was the one who called Tony, remember?  And her mother would have killed her for it if she got the chance."

He might have responded, but Evangeline was already walking towards them, red hair streaming out behind her.  She looked wary, every muscle in her body ready to flee, like a wild cat ready to pounce.  

"Hey."  Evangeline rocked back on her heels, hand brushing against her hip, where Nora knew there was a gun.  Nora didn't really know what to say to her, now that they were standing across from each other.  "Natasha said that you wanted to talk to me?"

"Yeah."  She looked thinner, and there was a bruise fading across the side of her face, but other than that she looked fine.  "Just wanted to make sure you were really okay."

"I mean, I've apparently sold my soul to a secret government agency, but I'm not buried in a shallow grave somewhere.  Natasha says I have you to thank for that."  Evangeline tries for a smile but it doesn't quite fit on her face anymore.  "How about you? Are you okay?"

"As good as could be expected."  She didn't mention the stabbing pain that goes up her leg whenever she puts weight on her ankle, or the way her ribs are still healing, or that she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night and sometimes doesn't sleep at all.  They weren't here for that.  "I'll be okay."

"Good."  Evangeline nods.  "That's good."

She nods, once, opens her mouth like she might want to say something else, then turns on her heel and climbs the steps into the airplane.  Nora watches her go, the feeling in her chest a bit like regret, but at least she had proof that she was okay.

"You want to go inside?"  Fury asks her, reappearing at her side without her noticing.

"No."  She was close enough to the plane that the wind would force her back when it took off, but she wanted to be there when Evangeline was set away.  Someone should be.  "I want to stay."

 

 

She waits, but the plane doesn't take off.  Instead, the door flies open like it had been kicked and Evangeline jumps down, running back towards her.

"Here," She pants, stuffing something into the palm of Nora's hand.  "I won't be able to see you, or talk to you.  We can't be friends anymore, if we.. if we were.  But if you need me, I'll be there, okay?"

Nora had a burning in the back of her throat and her eyes were blurred with tears, but she could still see enough to step forward and hug her.  "okay."

"And I mean it, you really have to need me.  Like, life or death, emergency level need me, okay?  But if you do, then I'll find a way back here."  Evangeline stepped away, and Nora could see the tears slipping freely down her face.  They dripped down onto the pavement, a part of her that would always stay even when everything else was gone.  "It's what friends are for."

"You be safe, okay? Take care of yourself, where ever they're taking you."  She was crying, and that was pathetic, because Nora was pretty sure you weren't supposed to cry over the girl who almost killed you.

"You too.   And Nora?"  She was backing away now, away from Nora and towards the plane, closer and closer to good bye.  "I'm sorry.  For both of you.  Tell Peter I said that."

She wouldn't be telling Peter anything, but she didn't need to know that.  "You don't have to be sorry, Evangeline.  You saved us.  We know that."  Nora was grateful all over again, grateful like she was when Evangeline gave her that shred of warmth in the cold room, grateful when she had made Margot stop hurting Peter even though it meant that she would hurt her.  Grateful like she was in that hospital room when Tony explained how they found her.  "Thank you."

"Don't you do that."  Evangeline said, stern, the way she always was.  the one who was totally in control of everything.  "Don't you cry, too."

That was the last thing that Nora got to hear her say, because she turned and jumped back into the plane.  She watched it leave, even when the wind ripped at her hair and her clothes and really did make her want to stumble backwards, until it was just a sliver of silver in the sky that she couldn't see anymore.  

"Feel better?"  Fury was beside her again, looking down at her with his one eye.

Nora stared at the empty tarmac, at the spot where Evangeline's tears had disappeared into the ground.  "No."

 


	33. Peter

"You should talk to him," MJ keeps saying, whenever the conversation lulls and it is just the two of them sitting in the quiet, like if Nora was calm she would be easier to convince.  "He misses you."

"I don't care,"  Nora always says, the words coming out of her like a reflex, even though it was a lie.  It used to be the truth, but then the rage had burned out and the pain of everything that had happened had melted away, and the sting of being lied to was covered up with all kind of new feelings that she didn't know she had room for.  There's not enough room in her head for bitterness on top of everything else.  The therapists say that means she's moving forward, which according to them, is a very good thing.  

She tries not to care, not to be the first one to break, but sometimes when she wakes up and just wants someone to be beside her, she misses him, too.

 

 

She doesn't call, but she does listen to all the voice mails he left and she never touched.  Nora had promised herself she would stay away from them, because it would be like picking at a scab once the wound was almost healed, but one night she couldn't sleep and she couldn't call him, so she went for the next best thing instead.

 _Hey,_ and it was his voice, clear and thick with tears. _I know you're mad at me.  And I'm sorry that I didn't tell you, it's just that I never told anyone before, they just figured it out, and you were just a stranger when you started telling me that you hated Spider-Man.  I tried to tell you sometimes, but I got scared, and anyways, a part of me liked not having to be Spider-Man around you.  I liked just being able to be Peter._

_I've texted you a lot.  MJ says you're home form the hospital, so you must be getting these, but you're not picking up.  And that's alright, you're mad, and you've gone through a lot, it's just that... I'm worried, a bit, and I know you're okay, I keep telling myself that you're okay, but it'd make things easier if you told me so yourself?  Is that crazy?  It sounds crazy.  Just, call me?_

_It's been like three weeks now, and you still aren't calling, and, I just, I just want to tell you that all that stuff we said to each other at prom- I get it, if its not like that anymore, but I still want to be best friends.  Or even just friends.  I just miss you, Nora.  Just call me._

_Me again. I thought about that call last night and if you still want it, that stuff we said at prom, that'd be cool , too.  Or we could just start over, pretend like we never met.  I'll go first: I'm Peter Parker.  My parents are dead and I live with my aunt.  Sometimes I swing around in a suit your adopted father made me and fight crime.  You?_

_That last message was stupid. Ignore it._

_Look, uh, obviously, you don't want to talk to me.  And that sucks, you know, because I didn't ask for it.  I didn't ask to be bitten and have powers, didn't ask for your stupid dad to suck me into his world and fight battles for things I don't understand.  I'm not a hero, alright?  I'm a kid, a kid who didn't know what he was doing when he was fighting a bunch of unkillable robot aliens and was really scared, so sorry that you were in the building when I threw  that thing.  It was_ killing _me, alright?  What would you have done, Nora?  Would you have let it kill you?  All the civilians were supposed to be gone... and.... it's not my fault, is all I'm saying._

_Sorry about that last one.  It's not your fault either._

_I'm going to stop calling you now.  Or at least, I'm going to try, I said that two other times and just kept going.  But if ever decide you want to talk to me again, the doors open, alright?  Clean slate, for both of us._

She clicks through them three times, over and over, until the sun starts to wash away the night.  Nora tries to call him, but doesn't quite make it there, so she just throws the phone at the wall instead.

 

 

The next time she listens to him it's in the middle of the night again, and the nightmares are still echoing around in her head, and she calls him without really meaning to.

"Hello?"  He picks up on the second ring, voice thick from sleep.

"Don't talk, okay?"  She didn't think she could take it if he started talking.  "Just listen.

"I'm not, like, upset with you.  I just can't... I'm having a hard time, and I'm trying, Peter, but I'm not there yet.  I just need a little more time, alright?  But I'm getting there.  I'm getting there, I promise."

This time when she hangs up, she's so angry that she walks right through the garage and to the open door, ignoring Tony asking her why she's standing outside in her bare feet, and hurls the phone as far as she can out into the backyard.

DUM-E brings it back.

 

 

She watches the decathlon, which is what really breaks her down.

Peter is brilliant, like he always is, and he and MJ practically steamroll every team they go up against.  She likes to listen to him talk, the way his answers come out like a question even though he's never wrong, the way he tugs at his hair when he does math problems, how he reaches out a hand to MJ for her to grab onto when she gets nervous.

It's sweet.  He always sweet, and by the time Peter slams down on the buzzer and shouts out the winning answer, she's wiping her tears on the blanket.  They pile in on each other, Peter disappearing under them, and when it comes to award the medals, the coach and all the subs storm out onstage.  

Tony is with them, hovering at the side lines, flashing Peter a thumbs up.  His grin only gets bigger when he sees him.

There's a shortage of medals.  One girl, a tiny mouse of a thing that's probably only a freshman, is the last in line and doesn't get one.  She doesn't seem upset about it, just a little sad, but then Peter is crossing the stage and pulling his own medal off, slipping the award around her neck.  

"It's alright,"  He says, when the girl protests and MJ tries to tell him not to.  "I'll know that we've won.  That's enough.  You deserve a medal, too."

He takes a place beside MJ again, accepts whatever the announcer whispers to him with a nod and a smile, and the camera pans out to capture Tony in the view, who looks prouder than ever.

  "He's my intern."  He says later, when the camera man and the reporter pull Peter over for a comment.  "best kid you're ever going to meet, right here.  Hard worker, and he's got a mind for numbers like no one I've ever met.  He's going places."

 _You're right,_ Nora thinks, and here she was sitting on the couch with potato chip crumbs all over her when she should really be with them. _You're absolutely right._

 

 

It takes her three tries to actually go.

The first time, she tries to take the bus and then has to call Happy to come pick her up.  The second, she intends to drive but can't even make herself turn the car on.  The third time, she calls Happy and asks if he can take her.

"Just keep going, even if I ask you to turn back around."  She buckles in and opens up a water bottle just to give herself something to do, wishing she had the courage to call first.  "It's just something I need to do."

He doesn't argue with her, just keeps silent until he pulls up to the building and tells her to take all the time she needs, leaving her to climb up the stairs on shaking legs.  She almost runs away when she gets to the door, but eventually she knocks, and the door swings open to reveal Aunt May.

"Oh."  She's surprised to see her there, and Nora panics for a moment, because she was prepared for Peter but not Aunt May.  She wouldn't have been surprised if the woman slammed the door in her face, after everything.  Instead, she reached forward and wrapped her in a hug, the kind that only comes from a woman that views every child as her responsibility.  "I've been so worried about you."

"Oh."  Nora can't remember how to speak, and that must have shown on her face, because Aunt May lets her go as fast as she grabbed hold.  "I came to see Peter?"

"He's in his room."  A shadow passes over her face, the closet thing Nora thinks she'll get to blame. Nora wonders how many nights she spent up blaming Nora, hating her, wishing she had never walked into Nora's life.  "Do you want me to get him for you?"

"No."  The voice was not her own.  It was a timid sound.  Nora had never been scared around Peter before.  "No, I'll get him.  Can I go back?"

"You go ahead."  Aunt May smoothed her hair back, and the look on her face was like she understood that Nora had to take some time to worry about herself, even if she hated her for what it had done to Peter.  "You do whatever you need to do."

 

 

She almost, almost, turned around and walked right back out the door.  The only thing that kept her was the fact that Peter had super hearing thanks to his super powers (Tony had given her the insider scoop) and would have known she was here from the moment she stood in front of his apartment.  

Nora pushes the door open, and the sight of him sitting there knocks the breath out of her.  He's in his pajamas, hair wild, but he's also staring at her like he had never met her before. And maybe he hadn't.  She's different, now.  He probably is too.

"Hey."  It's a good of a place to start as any.  A smile didn't hurt, either.  "I brought you something."

"You brought me something?"  His voice was dripping with something close to sarcasm, and she felt like the two of them were walking the thin line between a make up and a melt down.  Maybe they were one in the same, but she would rather skip to the part where everything was okay.  "What could you possibly bring me after all that happened?"

It had seemed like a good idea when she had it, but the things she comes up with at three in the morning were rarely as clever come the day.  But she was here, and she had made a plan, so she reached into her bag and pulled it out, laying it down on the desk so she didn't have to come any closer.

"I watched the decathlon."  Her voice was small again, small and sorry and so, so sad, so ready to put all of this behind them even though she was the one who had kept them apart.  "Saw you were short a medal."

They stare at each other, and then he looks down at the medal sitting on his desk, one made of felt and a safety pin and sharpies.  And then his face split into a smile and he started laughing, laughing so hard that Nora half thought he would never stop.

"I did need one of these."  He picked it up and held it in the palm of his open hand, and for a moment, it felt like things were going to be okay.

 

 


	34. To Actually Moving On

Things aren't back to normal, exactly, because she still can't walk up the stairs without needing to sit down and take a break, but they are getting better.

"I told you,"  Bucky says, because he's an asshole, but Nora knows that he's right. He was right about a lot of things, like the pills, and learning to lean on her friends when she's having a bad day or that doing things like sleeping in the closet was a type of behavior that just enables her bad thoughts.  "I told you things would get better."

"Yeah,"  Nora says, but better isn't back to normal.  Better isn't even _good,_ if she were to judge it against how her life was before she got kidnapped, but it was something.  "But it needs some work."

 

 

She and Peter hang out all the time now.  That's one of the things she decided she needed to work on, patching things up with him, and he was happy to comply.  Peter was like one of those golden retriever puppies, always pleased to just tag along wherever you go, so long as they're included.

They have a conversation about their feelings like they were adults drawing up divorce papers or signing a lease on an apartment, sitting across the table with cups of tea in front of them.  It was like they thought if they were any closer together, they might not be able to handle it.  

"What you said, on those messages-,"  Nora starts, but Peter interrupted.

"You listened to those?"  He blurted out, and then closed his eyes like he was internally scolding himself.  "I thought you were deleting them."

"Yes, I listened.  I listened a lot, actually."  She glared at him then, because not only did she not want to talk about things like this, it also wasn't the point.  "But you said something about the things we told each other at prom.  How that didn't have to be a thing.  And I think that would be better."

"Oh."  He looked put out, like a puppy that had been sent out to stand in the rain and was now standing at the back door waiting for you to let it in.  That stung, a bit, to know that all she seems to be doing lately is hurting him, but she can't help it.  "I mean, yea, of course."

"That's not to say that I don't still feel that way about you, at least a little."  She was tripping out her words, but they still kept fumbling out of her, trying to figure out how to explain that she loved him so much and she knew that he liked her but that maybe that wasn't the best thing for either of them, right now.  About how if they give it time and space and still feel that way, then they could start it up then, without all this pain and uncertainty building a wall between them.  Because there would be a wall, and when it finally fell to pieces, so would they.  "Because I do, and I want to do this, but I think it would be best if we decided to wait."

"And then what?"  He had his arms crossed and wouldn't look at her, and more than anything she wanted him to understand that this was not a rejection.  "We revaluate?"

"Yes."  She latched onto that, relieved, even though she was pretty sure that he was mostly being sarcastic.  "A few weeks from now, we talk, we decide then.  Not now.  There's a bunch of things we have to worry about now, but dating isn't one of them."

"Okay." He gives her a smile that doesn't reach his eyes, but she also thinks that he looks a little relieved, too.  "We revaluate."

 

 

 

They're picking up how they started, taking trips around the city together.  Sometimes they ride the subway all afternoon, and sometimes they settle down into odd corners to the library and make fun of old poetry.  Sometimes they wander and do food challenges to see if they could eat five pound burgers or giant pizzas (Peter wins, Nora doesn't) and other times they go shopping for odd pieces of artwork.  But other times, when one of them gets dragged down by all the stuff in their head, they end up just sitting on opposite sides of the room, watching crappy day time television and trying to talk the other into eating.

It was meant to be one of those days.  Peter had texted her while he was at school and asked her to come over, said it was a bad day and he just wanted to see her.  She had said yes without thinking and was in the car a moment later, the spare key he had given her hanging around her neck.  ( _The magazines who still sent people to follow her called the necklace made out of a key and a chain trendsetting, but Nora just thought it was convenient_ ).

She let herself in without thinking, and then she came face to face with Aunt May, who clearly hadn't been expecting to see her any more than Nora had.  "Oh."  She backtracked out ito the hallway, then decided that was stupid and walked back in.  "I'm sorry.  I didn't realize you would be home."

"Is this what you two do now?"  Aunt May didn't sound angry, just tired.  "Come over whenever?"

"He can get into my house without asking.  Has the passcodes and all."  Nora was fumbling for words.  She always does, around Aunt May.  "I guess he thought he was being fair."

He thought he was being convenient, for the days when dragging himself out of bed to come let her in would be like moving mountains, or if there was ever a situation that he couldn't let her in.  The truth was that they had trouble being apart, now, something Bucky called an unhealthy codependency.  

Aunt May didn't seem bothered about the key.  But she was upset about something, and she slammed Nora's customary mug of tea down so hard that the warm drink slopped over the sides.  Then she stopped and stared at her for so long that Nora thought that this might finally be the day she gets sent away.  "You're being careful with him, aren't you?" Aunt May plowed over Nora's protests.  "Because I know it's not your fault, what happened.  I don't blame you.  And I know he can handle himself, with his powers and all, but he keeps throwing himself into danger an telling me its to protect people, but no one's protecting him, okay?  No one is."

"He's got the best suit."  The words fall out of her mouth to reassure herself more than anything, but they aren't helpful.  "Bullet proof, and protective, and water proof, and there's an AI in it to help him and to get him help, if he needs it." 

"Did it save him, the day they came to take you?  Did it save you?"  Aunt May's voice was trembling, her eyes red and if Nora wasn't careful she was going to have a whopper of a panic attack right in her kitchen.  "It didn't.  He got hurt."

They could hear the key in the lock, then, and Peter's voice calling hello down the hallway.  Aunt May wiped the tears from her eyes and Nora took a gasping breath, tapping the floor with her foot to prove to herself that she was on solid ground.

"He's just been through a lot, okay?  Had a lot of things taken away from him."  Aunt May forced a smile on her face, pretending to be happy for the benefit of her nephew like nothing was wrong.  Nora tried to follow.  "Don't do this unless you mean it."

 

 

 

"Does this mean that we're all okay again?"

It's Ned who asks it, looking at all of them with wide eyes.  He never came to visit her, maybe firmly stuck on Peter's side of it, and he couldn't seem to stop staring at her, like she might snap any moment.

They're at their customary movie night, which they would have all the time before everything went to shit.   Normally Evangeline would be with them, but tonight her chair stays empty.  Nora half wished MJ would have dragged it away so she didn't have to look at it.

"Not yet."  Peter says, wrapping an arm around Nora just to pull her to him.  He gave her a smile that melted away the panic that has settled into her chest ever since her conversation with Aunt May two days ago.  They'd agreed on no boyfriend/girlfriend kind of feelings, but Nora thinks they cross the line sometimes just because they don't know how to act any different.  "But we're getting there."

"We're going to be okay."  MJ says, in that voice of hers that no one can argue with.  "We just need some time."

  _We are, aren't we?_   Nora thinks, and its the first time she's really believed it since this whole mess started. _We're going to be just fine._

 

 

"I'm going to have to leave soon."  Peter's voice came from somewhere on her right, drifting through the haze of sleep that had settled down around her.  "Need to be back before Aunt May comes in to wake me up."

It was her fault that he was here.  She had called him, because she had had a nightmare and couldn't go back to sleep and also got it into her head that he was still trapped in that white room and maybe she should call just so she could make sure, and when he answered she couldn't help herself, she had asked him to come over to help her remember how to breathe.  And he came without question, FRIDAY letting him in and telling her he was on his way, and she latched onto him the moment he walked through the door of her room, the relief of seeing him knocking the air back into her lungs.

"I brought my web shooters."  He settled down at her closet door and started his watch of the bedroom, standing guard over her.  "Anything comes through that door and I'll-"  He made a hand motion and shot webbing all over her drawers, which he probably didn't mean to do but would be easy to clean.  "Stuck, right there until Mr. Stark can come get them."

That was three hours ago.  It was also the first time he had learned about the closet, and then learned about the nightmares and the therapy appointments and the pills.  "I'm not doing so good," She admitted, and that was the understatement of the century.  "A lot of things happened really fast.  Guess I couldn't take it."

He told her that things were okay, then, and that he wasn't kidding about standing guard.  That he understood about the closet, and that he didn't think she was weak or weird or crazy or any of the other things she had been worrying about.  And he just stayed, until now, apparently, when he was getting ready to leave so he could beat Aunt May.

"I know you told me that you didn't want to worry about any of our feelings or anything until you can handle it, and I get that, I do, but I just thought I should tell you once, even if you can't hear me."  She could hear him shuffling his feet, but she didn't stop him, not when she wanted to both desperately know what he was about to say and also not hear it at all.  "I'm still in love with you."

Her breath hitches in her throat but he doesn't hear, just plows forward with what he must have been thinking all night.  "I don't want to be.  It would be easier not to be.  But I am.  And I'm sorry, for everything, for the things I didn't tell you and the things I did.  But that's over now.  Now it's just us."

 _Stop,_ she wanted to say. _Stop saying things like this, you don't mean it, you can't mean it, you will ruin me Peter Parker and I will break you to pieces, don't you see?_

"I love you." He whispered it again a third time, but he does not reach out to her like she thought he might.  "And I will, for as long as you'll let me."

 _I love you, too,_ she thinks, and she even whispers it, but it is to an empty room. _But what good will that do either of us?_

 


	35. Tony's Birthday

He's still in the lab when he gets the call.

Tony hadn't meant to stay there for so long, but the med student/engineer that he had taken on for the spring semester actually had a good idea, and with Tony's help they were right on the verge of a break through.  He lived for those moments, when the puzzle was clicking together and you knew that you were right on the edge of completing what you were working on, that in a few seconds you would be moving the world forward, or even changing it completely.

This was someone from their medical branch, who was working with prosthetics.  She had to sign a bunch of confidentiality agreements to be able to work here,  but then she got to read all about Bucky's metal arm and the fall and what Hydra did to him, and then she had been put to work fixing it.  "If this works,"  Tony promises her, talking around the screw that he had clenched in his teeth, "I'll buy you anything you want.  You need a house?  I'll buy you a house, as long as you sign on with Stark Industries full time."

"I already have a house,"  Her mouth was twitching up but she wasn't really falling into the banter.  He didn't really expect her to, not when there was _information_ and _science_ and _break throughs_ to distract her.   "Buy me a cat?"

He laughs, the answer breaking his concentration, which is around the time he realized that his phone was ringing.  Normally, he would ignore it this kind of situation, but with everything that happened, he's always half afraid that every phone call will hold bad news.  "Sorry."  It was Pepper, her face lighting up the front of his phone, so he couldn't reasonably ignore it.  He doesn't even want to.  "I have to take this."

The girl (Avery, that was her name) only nodded and then threw a hologram up against the wall, not even bothering to ask why he was leaving.  She was a genius, and he had picked her out of a small town in Kentucky to throw her into the big wide world of science.  Sometimes he wonders if he actually did her a favor.

"Hey, Pepper."  It made him happy to talk to her, even though he couldn't get rid of the feeling that he had done something wrong without realizing it.  "How was your day?"

They normally don't talk like that, with small talk, but he didn't really have a clue why she was calling.  But she was angry.  He can always tell when she's angry.  "Do you realize what time it is?"  She doesn't give him a chance to answer, just stream rolled on ahead, and he smiled in spite of himself.   "It's like, eleven at night.  Why are you still at the lab?  You're never at the lab."

"Breakthroughs, pep."  He could tell her about James and the constant pain in his metal arm, how they were this close to fixing it, and he thought that Avery was actually nonthreatening enough that Bucky would let her touch him.  It was a win-win all around.  "Big science related things are happening here."

"Well, do you know what's happening here?"  He didn't, really.  He had specifically  checked to make sure he didn't need to be home tonight, because it was his birthday, and after that party where he was dying from blood poisoning and forced Rhodey to steal one of his suits, he didn't really feel like celebrating.  So he buries himself in his work and his lab, and this little bit of progress with the Winter Soldier Situation was worth it.  But Pepper was still angry, which made him feel like he was missing something.  "Your daughter and Spider-Man have made you a cake, and have been waiting all night for you to get home."

There are moments where things truly surprise him.  There haven't been many, since the sky opened up and aliens poured out of it, but there are a few.  This is one.  "What?"  Avery looked up, and he waved her away.  "Why would they do that?"

"Because you promised me that you'd come home tonight."  Pepper was aggravated.  He wondered if she was at home or just making this call from her office, which, hypocrite.  "And I promised them you'd be home.  So how about you do us all a favor and finish what you're working on, alright?"

Tony sighed.  He didn't want to leave.  He wanted to help fit together the last few pieces on the arm, and then start working on a way to remove the old one without hurting Bucky.  "Alright."  He scrubbed a hand over his face.  "I'll be there."

 

 

It's after midnight by the time he makes it home, shoes squeaking on the floor as he walks to the kitchen.  And there, slumped over the kitchen counter by a cake and a gift bag, was Nora.  

"Hey,"  He nudges her on the shoulder, gently, but she wakes up immediately.  When she sees its him, she blinks accusingly and then slumps back down to the counter.  "Wakey wakey."

"Pepper said you would be home _hours_ ago."  She was sulking.  Most definitely sulking.  "We made you a cake."

"I see that."  He squinted at the frosting.  "Is that supposed to be me on the front?"

There was a robot in red and gold that looked vaguely like Iron Man, but only because he was taking an educated guess at what it was supposed to be.  It sort of just looked like a bunch of blocks stuck together.  "Peter promised he could do it,"  She still wasn't awake, and was just now really looking at the time on the clock.  "Peter lied."

"Peter helped?  Did he go home?"  He feels more awful with every word she says, and also ten times worse every time he looks at the cake.  

"No, he..."  She looked beside her, then down to the floor and snorted.  When Tony leaned over the counter, he could see Peter sprawled out across the ground, icing smeared across his face.  Nora tossed a blanket down over him.  "He fell of the chair."

"Oh.  Well."  He didn't know what to say.  Tony was used to flashy presents, to things that were either meant to be shown off or as a joke.  He didn't know what to do with a scribbled together card and homemade cake, but he was incredibly afraid that he might cry.  "Thank you.  You guys didn't have to do that."

"Yes, we did.  Every parents needs their kids to make them a crappy cake at least once. You just got a late start." She blinks, blearily, then shoves it at him.  "I'm going back to bed."

"Okay."  He wanted to say more, but then she was nudging Peter with her foot and dragging him over the to couch, and after a few mumbled happy birthday's, they were both playing tug of war with the blanket, leaving him to stand alone in the kitchen by himself.

"May I suggest, sir,"  It was  FRIDAY's voice, coming in through the speakers.  Sometimes he wants to delete Friday.  "That you take it down to the workshop?"

 

 

The workshop, when he got there, was decorated, too.  There were balloons tie to every surface and streamers hanging down from the doors, and DUM-E had a birthday hat stuck down on his head.  Happy Birthday started blasting the moment he walked through the doors, so loud that he almost dropped the cake.  

"It was supposed to be a surprise."  Pepper was stretched out on the couch, flipping through a pile of folders and putting her signature down on the ones she liked.  She was a better CEO than he ever was.  "Guess it still was."

"You shouldn't throw surprise parties for a man with a heart condition,"  He grumbled, but he was only half-hearted about it, because he was digging through his present and pulling out a set of miniature Avenger's action figures, along with a full size Spider-Man one and a shirt that said that Spider-Man was his favorite superhero.  The shirt was homemade, and the lettering was hot pink.  "Can't believe you let them do that."

"And I can't believe that of all days, this is the one you decide to be late."  Tony sat down beside her, and she put her feet up into his lap.  "Did you like it?"

Tony considered it for a moment, staring down at the cake on the counter and the gifts spread in front of him.  "They're good kids, aren't they?"

It was better than a thank you, or trying to explain why he had been so intent on staying away.  She understood, anyways.  "They are." 

 


	36. Wedding Plans

There's a wedding to plan.

Nora hadn't really thought of everything that had to be put into a wedding before.  She'd always been in the position where she could just show up and eat the food selection that someone else had slaved over, admiring decorations that she must have thought just hung themselves and thinking that it was a lot of bother for just one day.  Now, though, she's looking back on every wedding she'd ever gone to (not that there had been many, other than a few cousins and an aunt and one girl from her volleyball team who got married in her backyard right after graduation) with a new set of eyes, appreciating every tiny detail that much more.  

Because it takes a lot of work.

"I don't need to check with Tony about how to fold the napkins,"  Pepper was saying, waving her hand at the picture on the screen that Natasha was showing both her and Nora.  "He's probably going to be on the verge of a panic attack all day until the ceremony starts, he won't bother to look at the napkins."

"He might."  Natasha had dropped in on SHEILD business and then just decided to stay, and now it seemed like she was having more fun than anyone else in the room.  (Which was just Nora and Pepper.  Nora's the official helper with all the planning, and she's really bad at color coding).  "And do you really think this is the fold that he'd want to go with?"

"And what should we go with instead?  The ones that are folded up like tiny doves?"  Pepper holds up a hand to stop both of them before they could stop talking, waving the question away and writing something down on her check list.  "That was a joke.  Simple is better.  These are the ones we're going with."

Nora snorted.  That's the one they had started with, and then they'd argued back and forth for a good ten minutes before going back to the first option.  They always end up going with the first option that catches Pepper's eye, because she always seems to know what she wants even before she sees it.  

Nora doesn't even know why she's here, really, if Pepper keeps making decisions without ever needing to ask her for a second opinion.  When she says so, Pepper frowns at her, reaching over to swat at her arm before taking a long swallow from her diet mountain dew.  (That's how Nora knows that this more stressful for her than she's letting on-Pepper only drinks soda when she's stressed.  Something about the carbonation calming her down.  And from the look on Natasha's face, she noticed it too.  But that's not surprising.  She's a spy.)

"Don't be silly."  Pepper was already moving on to the next page, and it looked like they were going to waste another half hour talking about flowers.  "You have to be here.  You're the maid of honor.  They have to help plan everything."

"Including the bachelorette party."  Natasha got up to leave, gathering her purse up.  "But seeing as how I'm not- I'll be on my way out."

"What are you talking about?"  Pepper spins away from the computer to glare at her.  "You have to stay, too.  Your schedule's clear today, I had Tony hack in to check."

Natasha froze for a moment, then let her purse fall back to the table.  She'd do whatever Pepper asked her to (there was a weird bond between them) but she always liked to make her work for it.  "And why do I need to do that?"

"You're my bridesmaid."  Pepper waved a hand and took another drink from her mountain dew.  when she set it down, Nora moved it out of her reach.  She'd already gone through an entire two liter.  "Well, you,  my sister, and my college room mate.  Didn't I tell you?"

"No."  Natasha, for all her careful spy training, could not have hid the surprise that had come from this announcement.  "Why am I a bridesmaid?"

Maybe she was expecting to be on security detail, just in case, or something.  Nora knew that Natasha wasn't used to having friends, to letting people in, but Pepper sort of just steamrolls her way through things like that.  "Because you're my best friend."  Pepper said it like it was a fact, but it seemed like it was news to Natasha.  "And you're one of Tony's closest friends, too.  It wouldn't seem right without you." She clicked on a flower arrangement without asking either of their opinions, then kept going.  "I already checked in with Fury.  The only thing that could pull you away is a national emergency, and the wedding would be canceled anyways if that happened, because Tony would be off playing superhero."

"Maybe you could get married over the phone."  Nora said, because she didn't like to think about her favorite people running off to play their alter egos in order to save the day.  "FRIDAY could initiate it."

Pepper just pursed her lips.  Nora wondered if Tony had actually suggested it.  "Over my dead body."

 

 

 

She's on cake patrol.

It was supposed to be Pepper and Tony, but there was some sort of emergency with the company, so now she and Bucky were staring down at all the selections of cake.  It wasn't the worst job to be stuck with,  but she had never known there were so many different types of buttercream frosting.

"I don't know why we had to come do this."  Nora said, speaking around a mouthful of sample cake.  "Pepper's just going to call back and change whatever we decide."

Truthfully, she didn't know why Bucky had to this, unless this was some sort of ploy by Steve to get him out from the safety net that was the rest of the Avengers and face the rest of the real world.  He had seemed mildly panicked by all the other cars on the road (or maybe that was just because of her driving) and when the man at the door had offered to take his coat, he clenched his jaw so tight Nora thought he wouldn't open it again and left Nora to explain that they would rather keep them, never mind that it was seventy degrees outside.  

"I guess it's your job."  He wouldn't touch the cake.  Nora's noticed that he's a bit of a health freak, and all these piles of icing probably would make him do a sort of vegetable cleanse afterward.  That was okay with her.  She would eat his share.  "Maid of honor and all."

He said it like it was a horrible idea, like it was on the same level as being tortured.  And maybe it would be, for him, having to stand in front of all those people in a suit with his metal hand on clear display.  "You think about any of this stuff?  Marriage?  Wife and two kids and a dog?  The picket fence?"  She waved her hand across the table of  cakes.  "I mean, you're.."  Then she stopped and squinted at him.  "How old are you, anyways?"

"Depends on how you're counting."  That was one of those questions that would have set him off, before, but now he just clenches his fist and stares down at her like she's a bug he wants to squash.  "Besides, its not really in the cards right now.  There's not even a girl."

"What about Avery?  The girl working on your arm?"  Nora's incredibly annoying when she wants to be, and Wanda really is a terrible gossip.  "I heard she'd go with you."

"Don't."  There was a flash of something across his face, a tightening in the jaw or a hardness behind the eyes, but he doesn't really sound angry, just tired.  "Don't talk about her."

"Just saying.  You're the one who told me that sometimes it's only your mind that holds you back."  She's pushing too far, but she had heard the stories about her, about how they both like each other but Bucky's too afraid to make a move because he thinks that he might hurt her, that what he was made to do had damned him and he didn't want to drag anyone else with him.  Nora didn't want him to think like that, because she could see what a great guy he was.  This Avery girl could probably see it, too.  "Might as well take a chance while you can, right?"

"Not this time, Nora."  He sighed, heavy, and then grabbed up three plates of cake, stuffing one into his mouth and looking the whole time like she had forced him to do it.  "I'll be in the car.  Come out when you're done."

(She orders the cake and tells them that Pepper would call in a few days to confirm the order.  Nora was right about them not having to go, because in the end Pepper did call and change everything she had told Nora to get.)

 

 

"What do you mean who's my best man?"  Nora and Peter were spread across the floor of the garage playing a game of uno, but then Tony came in and it became 20 questions with Peter.   Most of them about the wedding.  And now Tony was waving a screw driver in their direction like something had gone wrong and it was all Peter's fault .  "You're my best man.  Didn't I tell you that?  I didn't tell you that."

"Uh,"  Peter looked like someone had punched him across the face.  "No, you didn't."

"Well.  There you are."  Tony smiles, and it's tight around the eyes but its real. "Peter, I would like you to be my best man. Officially.  And say yes, because I already ordered the tux in your size."

"I mean, of course, but..."  He was going to say something stupid now, something that was incredibly Peter-like, she could already tell.  "Why me?"

"Why you? Kid."  Tony took off his sunglasses to look at them, maybe so they could see that there wasn't any joking.  "I've told you before.  You're the best guy I've ever met.  Superhero all the way.  I'd be stupid not to have you as my best man."

"Told you, Peter."  Nora grumbled.  She used to be jealous of this, that Peter was practically Tony's son and didn't even seem to realize it, but now she's just upset that it interrupted their uno game.  "He does care about you."

"Course I do."  That was new, too, that Tony would admit to it instead of hiding it behind upgrades to the suit and comments to the press.  Maybe almost losing both his kids to a crazy lady will do that to you.  "You're practically my kid, now, too.  Just don't tell your Aunt May what we do at the bachelor party alright?"

"Alright.  But what are we going to do at bachelor party?"  Tony winked, and Nora laughed, and Peter just looked vaguely panicked.  "Mr. Stark?  Mr. Stark, what are we doing?"

 

 

 

"I never thought we would have kids." Pepper said, coming up beside Nora.  Nora was taller than her, just by a few inches, but sometimes it felt like she towers over her.  "There was a long time where I thought that me and Tony would never work out, even though we loved each other."

"How long have you loved him?"  Nora doesn't normally ask about things like that.  But she wanted to know, suddenly, to have proof in happy endings.

"God, it seems like forever."  There was a soft smile on Pepper's face, and it doesn't go away even when she watches Tony push Peter into the pool.  "I was his assistant then, and it seemed so far out of reach.  But he needed someone to love him.  And so did I, I guess."

"And then Iron Man."

"And then Iron Man."  Pepper sounded resigned when she said it.  Nora knew that that had almost been the end of them, Pepper having to watch Tony walk into danger time and time again and never knowing whether or not he would come back, and then having to deal with the fall out.  "And then you."

"Do you regret it?" _Do you regret me?_   Nora wanted to ask, because she hadn't been in the plan. She wasn't sure if Pepper had ever gotten a say in any of this, or if Tony had just signed up for it, the way he sometimes signs checks to donate a million dollars to abused animals without telling anyone.  That would throw anyone for a loop.  "Any of it?"

"No." Pepper wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close, and the two stood like that for a while, watching.  "How could I, when it led me to all of this?"

 


	37. Disney

"Maybe you didn't understand what I was asking."  Tony says, looking pained.  "It's your birthday in a few weeks.  I want to take you on a vacation _this_ week, as a sort of present.  To anywhere in the world.  And you want to go to Disney World?"

Nora shrugs.  She had answered as soon as he asked her, without having to think. And that was the answer she had come up with, without pausing to think about trips to the Bahamas or Italy or other, more exciting places.  "I've never gotten the chance to go."  She shrugs and picks at the blanket.  Nora should be more excited, but it had been a bad day, and its sort of hard for her to feel anything but numb.  "I think I'd like to."

"Alright."  Tony nods, and then claps her on the shoulder.  She was pretty sure he hadn't been intending to do this at all, he just saw she was upset and still relied on grand gestures to show affection.  "Disney it is."

 

 

She thinks to ask if Peter can come a day later, and it turns out that Peter could, which is why when she and Pepper and Tony walk through the gates of Magic Kingdom for the first time, he's right there with them.  

"This is awesome."  It seems to disgust Tony that they are finding this so exciting, but Pepper just laughs and shoves the sunglasses up on her head.  They were drawing looks, but so far, no one has stopped them to ask them for an autograh.  The demands of kids wanting nothing more than to see Mickey Mouse sort of limit your ability to gawk.  "Thank you so much, Mr. Stark."

"Yeah,"  Nora echoes, and that's a poor way to describe it, but this is one of the places that always seemed off limits to her.  But now she was walking towards the castle with hundreds to other tourists, wearing a set of mickey mouse ears on her head and an Ariel caricature tatooed on her shoulder.  "Thank you."

 

 

The plan is to stay for a week.  

Nora had thought it would be a family bonding type of thing, but Pepper keeps getting calls from work because this was an unscheduled vacation and Tony doesn't do very well with crowds, so for the most part, Nora and Peter wandered around on their own while the adults stayed back at the hotel.

"This is the best week of my life,"  Peter had told her, when they huddled away from the crowd down a back alley where they could still watch the parade, finally out of the sun and with ice cream dripping down their wrists from the cones that they couldn't eat fast enough.  "I don't want to ever leave."

"Reality would suck, after this."  It was like this place was set apart from the rest of her life, where for a few days she would get the chance to actually be a kid, no matter how many people recognized her or what would be waiting for her when she went home.  Even the nightmares and the anxiety, which had been swimming so close to the surface since she had been taken, seemed to have given her a break while she was here.  Or maybe she was just so exhausted with all the distractions swirling around her that she was too tired for anything else.

There were plenty of distractions.  She'd gone on every ride at least twice, and she and Peter were posing with every character they came across.  They'd gotten a backstage tour through Anmal kingdom and got to hold a koala bear, thanks to some zoologist intern that recognized her, and in the magic kingdom they managed to score front row seats for the afternoon tour every day.  And they'd also taken full advantage of the money that Tony had given them to spend, slurping down icees and ice cream and hot dogs, buying matching t-shirts that they probably would never wear out in public.  They even waited a rediculusly long time for a cartoon drawing of the two of them, which Nora was intending to frame and hang on her bedroom wall when she got home.

"I meant it when I said that this has been the best week."  They were watching the fireworks together from the comfort of their hotel balcony.  Somewhere down on the walking paths, Tony and Pepper were trying to find their way to the pool.  "My life hasn't always been... good.  There's been a lot I've had to worry about.  But to have a week where I can not have to deal with any of that?  I needed it a long time ago."

"Yeah."  She swallowed down the lump in her throat, the one that would either make her apologize of have her burst into tears.  And even though they had a rule about this kind of thing, she couldn't stop herself from leaning back against his chest and letting him hold her up, reaching down to hold his hand.  "It's been sort of perfect."

She should have known that it wasn't going to last.

 

 

The disaster, for once, wasn't anything to do with her.  It wasn't even a national emergency or anything like that, no aliens invading or terrorists trying to kill a bunch of poeple because they were angry.  There was only a normal, mechanical malfunction where one of the rides came screeching to a halt and one of the cars knocked loose, seeming to dangle by a collection of hinges and wires. And there was a kid dangling from it, and one inside screaming for help while she tries to pull him back in. 

"Oh, my god."  Pepper didn't seem able to do anything but repeat that, over and over, watching it with a hand over her mouth.  They were right at the edge of the ride, so they would have a front row seat no matter how it turns out.  "Tony, do something."

Nora wondered how many times he'd had to hear those words.  To have something bad happen and everyone turn to him and expect him to fix it.  But this time, he didn't have a way to fix it.  "I can't."  It pained him to say it, but she could see him trying to look for a solution, maybe listening to FRIDAY scan the support structure and surrounding areas for a way out.  "I didn't bring the suit."

"You didn't bring the suit? Why would you not have the suit?"  This time it was Nora who rounded on him, because she had thought that a key part of being Iron Man was to always have the suit.  But there wasn't time to argue about that, not when the kids were still screaming and the one seemed to be slipping dangerously close to falling, so she rounded on Peter.  "You have to save them."

"I don't have the suit."  He seemed terrified at the thought, wide eyed with shaking hands.  

"But you still have the super strength, right?  And the webbing?  I know you have the webbing somewhere."  He hides it, in his pockets or his backpack or a nearby locker, just so he could strap it onto his wrists at a moment's notice in case he can't get to his suit.  "You told me once that you lifted yourself out from beneath a building and fought on an airplane while it was _in the air._   Was that true?  Because if it was, then you can do this.  Do you hear me?  You can do this."

"But they'll see."  He was already rummaging through his pockets, and she took the bracelets from them and snapped them on.  They seemed to sink into his skin when she closed the latch.  "They'll all know, and then-,"

"And then it's game over.  I know.  But do you remember what you told me, that when something happens and you don't use your powers to stop it, it's like you were the one doing it? Well, you see that little boy?"  She wrenches him around to look at it, and even though she knew it wasn't fair, she couldn't stop herself.  "He falls, its on you."

"What do you want me to do?"

He was angry at her.  He was angry at her now and would be even angrier later, when the cover was blown and he had time to stew over what she said to him.  "Save him."

 

 

She'd never gotten the chance to watch him in action before.  Even now, it was hard to keep track with how fast she was swinging, and with the people running back and forth behind her. Maybe she should be running, too, but she was just clinging to the guard rail and watching him. 

Nora thinks that he really is going to save the day, that everything was going to be fine, and you didn't need to worry.  And then her phone rings.  "Hello?"

"Hey."  It's him, of course it is, nervous and out of breath.  "If I throw something at you, think you can catch it?"

"Yes?"  Its the only answer you can give in a situation like this.

"Good."  He takes a shaky breath, repeats it one more time, and then he drops the phone.

 

 

Nora's not really sure what she had been expecting, when he told her that she was going to have to catch something, but she didn't really get the game plan until he was already swinging toward her, a four year old dangling from his hand.

"Oh shit."  She jumped off the railing and then backpedaled, trying to keep herself in line.  "Shit, shit, shit shit shit."

There's more yelling.  And more swearing.  And Pepper repeating what might be the Our Father, and Tony somewhere off the right screaming into his cell phone.  And then there's also Peter, staring down at her and screaming, and her standing like she's a football player about to block the incoming tackle, or something sport like, and then there's a seventy pound four year old slamming into her chest at fifty miles per hour and knocking her down the dirt.

"You're okay."  The boy is crying, and clinging to her, and it is like Haley all over again only now she is twisting around to try and find Peter, who had tumbled to the ground and was slow to get up.  There was no suit to protect him this time, and he had gotten hurt in the fall, she could see it.  But he was standing.  "It's all going to be okay."

She wasn't sure why that was the gut reaction for every one to say that after something bad happens, even though that's the time when its the most obvous that nothing will be okay again.  But it was the only thing you could say to a seven year old, even when you hand him off to a stranger and stumble over to the boy you love, who was bloody and covered in dirt.  

"He okay?"  He grabbed her by the elbows, not noticing that her skin was torn and he was just smearing more blood on himself.  

"Yes.  Yes, he's fine."  She pressed herself into him, because it was the only thing she could think to do.  "What about the girl?"

"I can't get to her."  He ran his hands through his hair and stumbled back, looking like he was ready to take off running again.  "She's strapped in, there's no way to pull her out unless I'm up there, and I don't think I can land on it without the suit."

"Then have me do it."  Tony was going to be so pissed at her.  It's the only thing she could think of.  "Just get me up there."

 

 

Another thing about Peter: his plans suck.  There's no real planning with them, just trying the first thng he thinks of and hoping it works.  She can see why Tony likes him so much.

In this case, his plan was picking Nora up and just throwing her, straight at leg sticking off from the car, which shouldn't have worked but actually did.  She slams into the bar at a million miles an hour, and it knocks the wind out of her.  Nora can actually feel her ribs crack all over again, but she hangs on.

Hanging on is the important part.

"Alright."  When she's up close, the girl doesn't look that little anymore. She looks about sixteen, only a year younger than Nora, so for a moment she doesn't see why she can't just think to unbuckle on her own.  But then she feels bad about it, so she just inches a little closer, one hand over the other.  Inch by inch by inch, until that turns to a foot, and then she would be right there.  "I just need to you to calm down, okay?"  She's not sure if the girl hears her, but she does notice she's there, and the girl just starts crying all over again.  "I'm going to handle it."

There are sentences that she never thought she would have to say in her lifetime.  Telling someome else to hang on while she dangles from a piece of machinery thirty feet off the ground and no back up plan was one of those.  But this has become her life now, so you just have to go with it.

"Don't get in!"  The girl was screeching at her now.  "It'll break apart, or tip, or something."

"Listen, if that happens, my buddy over there-"  She nods in the general direction of Peter and swings on leg in, even as the girl tries to shove her out.  "He'll grab us.  Well, grab the car.  I promise."

"You promise?"  The girl really was screeching.  She was probably a cheerleader.  Not that that says anything about her capability- Evangeline was a cheerleader, and she almost took down a whole country.  "Who even are you?"

"The one saving your life."  Was this something that happened a lot, or was Nora the only one who had to save someone who was being incredibly rude the whole time.  "Now, I'm going to need you to listen to me and do exactly what I say."

"Okay."  The girl nods and takes a deep breath and seems to come back to herself, just a little bit.  Some people do that, once they have someone there to give them directions.  "What do I need to do?"

"I'm going to get in beside you, and I'm going to hang onto the car really tight.  And you're going to hold onto me. And then you unbuckle so my friend can come along and grab you?"  She clibs in beside her as she says it, wrapping one arm around the support bars in a way she was sure would ribs her arm out of its socket, but would let her stay in.  "And then he'll drop you."

"He'll do what?"  The girl says, but its too late, she had already taken off the seat belt and pushed away the restraints.  And Nora was right: it most definitely did rip her arm right out of the socket, and for a moment, she really, really wished that she would have taken Tony up on his offer to make her a suit.

 

 

 

It only takes a moment for Peter to swing back up to get her, but it feels like years, with her swinging in the air and staring down at the faces gaping up at her.  He comes back and yanks her away, and the two hit the ground together, him running a few steps to slow down the momentum before they both tumble to the ground.

They circle over a few times, over and over and over, and come to a stop with her on top of him.  She tries to push herself up but just falls back down, and she can feel his hand come up to rest in her hair.

"Okay?"  He's bleeding, and panting, and he probably broke things, but she can already see his scrapes starting to heal.

Nora wasn't so lucky, but she was alive, and she could see Tony and Pepper running towards them both like its in slow motion, and she can see the boy and his sister off to the side, shaken up but hugging each other, and figures nothing else really matters.  "Okay."

 

 

A note about doctors: when they tell you something isn't going to hurt, they're always lying.

 

 

 

The walk from their hotel room down to the pool is a long one, but its one that she makes when she hears that Peter had slipped out while she was taking a shower.  They hadn't really talked, not since Tony swept him out of the park in the middle of a full on security detail and Pepper took her to the emergency room, both of them getting their respective lectures.  SHEILD had tried to do damage control, but it was too late.  

Peter Parker had officially been revealed as Spiderman.

He's doing laps when she gets there, and she settles down on the edge of the pool.  It was closed, officially, but the lights were still on and no one was there to stop them.  If they get caught, they could play the hero card, and she didn't think anyone would say anything else.

"Trying to drown yourself?"  She makes the joke and wishes she didn't, because that reminds her that she knows what drowing actually feels like.  

"No."  He swims up beside her and leans against the side of the pool, fingers clutching to the cement because it was too deep for his feet to touch.  "Just trying to clear some space in my head.  Been a crazy day."

"I'm sorry."  That's really what she wanted to say to him. It seems that lately every time he's around her, he just finds himself in a bigger mess.  "I shouldn't have said what I did.  It never would have been your fault.   And I'm sorry the whole world knows about you now."

He winces, and then he shrugs.  "They would have found out about it eventually."  He picks up her hand and holds it up to his mouth, almost like he's kissing it but not quite.  "And you did the right thing.  Talking me into it.  You saved the day just as much as I did."

His hand moves from hers and up her shoulder, fingers dancing across all the places the skin had been scraped away, all the places where new scars would grow.  "Still."  She couldn't concentrate with him like this, the two of them lit up by the lights underneat the water and his hands on her.  "You were just saying something about having it be perfect.  And now its not perfect."

"The cost of greatness."  He was quoting someone else, she could tell.  "I never wanted to be great.  I just wanted to help people.  I didn't think it would hurt so much."

Nora stares at him for a while, silent long enough that he turns to her.  She makes the decision without thinking about it, slipping down into the water even though she was still in her clothes, crowding against him so he couldn't pull away.  "Don't say anything, okay?"  She was whispering it, and she had to go on tiptoe against the ledge to reach him.  "Just go with it."

"But we agreed-,"

"Screw the agreement.  We're heroes."  This was a bad idea, but she had just let him throw her through the open air to slam into a piece of metal, and she _wanted_ this.  "We deserve this."

In the end, he doesn't argue.

 


	38. Birthdays

It was meant to be a tiny celebration.

"Honestly small."  Tony had said, arms raised up like it would prove his innocence.  "No big surprises.  No giant party.  Just a little get together."

He had kept his promise, having Peter take her to a little cafe where Pepper, Tony, Bucky, MJ, and Natasha were waiting for her. There was a plate in front of her heaping with pancakes and a mug of hot chocolate dripping with whipped cream, and a pile of presents on the seat beside her, and for a moment, she actually thinks she's about to have a good day.

"I'm sorry!"  Tony was panicking, shouting at her from across the room in between repulsor blasts.  Peter was somewhere out front, trying to get all the civilians out of the street.  "Every time I walk out the door it turns into this!"

There was another round of gunfire.  Nora sort of wanted to just keep cowering behind this overturned table with her hands over her ears, but she was THE GIRL WHO WALKED AWAY, and now after what happened at Disney she had been given a sort of amateur hero status, so she didn't get to do that anymore.

"I think he's giving himself too much credit."  MJ said.  MJ was the only one being calm about the whole thing, and was actually draining the rest of Nora's hot chocolate in between peeking around the table to check on Peter.  "It's not a him thing, its a city thing.  Happened outside Peter's apartment once."

"You?  Not helping."  MJ doesn't normally shut up, but when the Black Widow launches herself over a table and forces a gun into your hands, it doesn't leave much room for a come back.  "Know how to use this?"

MJ stares down at it.  "No."  She shoves it back.  "More of a peaceful protest kind of girl."

"I do."  Nora yanks it back, ignoring the stares that both of them sent her way, because yes, she actually did know how to fire the gun.  Actually making it hit the target was another matter, but they hadn't asked about that.  "What do I do now?"

"Nothing."  Natasha pokes her head up and fires her own gun, then hits the ground again.  "Just try not to shoot yourself in the foot, alright?"

 

 

It's over relatively quickly, but its also filed under the list of things that she hoped to never repeat.  "Im sorry,"  Pepper kept saying.  "We were such a high profile group of people, I guess they just couldn't resist."

"They didn't even like, make a plan?"  Peter said, kicking down at one of the guys that was still stuck to the floor.  It was a new web solution, one that he hadn't gotten the chance to try out yet.  Turns out he can't cut this one apart, and they were all hoping that it would dissolve soon.  They were on babysitting duty until it did.  "Just ran in here?"

"Oh, you're one to talk."  Tony came up behind him, fingers twitching at his sides.  There was a cut under his eye, but other than that, he was fine.  "Don't you just pick the first thing you think of and do it?"

"I threw your daughter in the air one time!"  Peter throws his hands up, angry.  "How many times do I have to say I'm sorry?"

"Try a few more."  His tone was teasing, but Tony wasn't really joking.  Both Nora and Peter had been in a lot of trouble for that, only none of them could figure out how to punish them when everyone else had been calling them heroes.  They were just told not to do it again unless it could be avoided.

(It couldn't be avoided then, they had both said.  That's the whole reason why they had done it in the first place.)

"Sorry about the birthday, kid."  Tony gives her a one armed hug and then turns his attention to the man on the floor.  "We'll redo it some other time"

They wouldn't.  Not like this. It would have taken a lot of effort to keep it this small and to have the security measures, and to have everyone's schedule line up. It actually would have been easier to throw a gigantic party and be done with it.

"It's alright."  She didn't expect much for her birthday, anyways.  Still, it was sort of sad to have seen the balloons ripped apart by bullets and her breakfast trampled underfoot.  "It was a nice thought,."

"Yeah,"  Tony echoed, staring down at the wreckage, fingernails digging into the place where the first bullet had dug into the table, inches away from Nora.  "A nice thought."

 

 

The rest of them had to stay, but Nora was allowed to go home.  She's tucked away in her closet by the time Peter comes to check on her.

She's not there because she has to be.  Nora's been able to sleep in her own bed every night for the past month. But while she was panicking, the closet had turned into a pretty nice place to hang out, and it was pretty good reading spot.  So she hangs out there, sometimes, when she doesn't want people to know where she is.

(Though it's pointless, because FRIDAY always knows, and she always tells everyone else.)

"Hey." She puts her book down when Peter crawls in and lays down beside her.  "That guy get unstuck?"

"Uh, no."  He rubs at the back of his neck.  "Still not dissolving.  Still can't cut through it.  Had to call in Dr. Banner, he and Tony are trying to sort something out.  Seems like a miscalculated... something."

"That's alright.  He was trying to kill us."  She falls back against him, the two of them melting together the way they have been since that night in the pool.  "I didn't expect to see you for a while.  At least not for the rest of today."

"I wanted to bring your birthday present."  He looks nervous and excited and like a little kid.  It makes something in her chest crack open, like someone had yanked on her ribs and split them apart, to think that after being shot at he still thinks of her present and wants her to have a good birthday.  

"You didn't have to-,"

"I know.  I wanted to."  It was a pointless argument, and a redundant one besides.  Every time anyone says that, you know that they still wanted the present.  "Close your eyes."

She does, and feels his hands brush against her wrist, replaced by the cold chill of a metal chain.  When she opens them again there's a bracelet hanging from her arm, simple and delicate, with a single charm in the shape of a star.  "I know you like constellations.  And that you can't always see them, with all the lights, so I thought..."  His voice falters, trails off.  "It was stupid."

"No.  No, it wasn't."  She turns his arm over in her own and brushes her fingers against the inside of his wrist, traces the path of his veins up into his arm.  Nora can hear his breath catch.  "Do you still like me, Peter?"

"You know I do."  It sounded like he was biting back words, trying to keep them from spilling out.  "I never stopped."

"That's good.  That's more than good.  You know why?"  She crawls onto his lap, her hair falling over both of them like a curtain when she leans in to meet him.  "Because I like you too.  Did you know that?"

"I hoped so."  He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands.  He had been so sure of himself, back in the pool, but it was different when you were forced to talk about you feelings.  "But I wasn't sure-,"

"You're so stupid.  So smart, but so stupid."  It's like they were trying to twist themselves together so no one could pull them apart, like they would reach the happy ending if they were able to turn themselves into a definite _we,_ a single entity.  "Of course I like you.  How could I not?"

(He doesn't believe her, not at first, but by the time they crawl hand in hand out of that closet and she kisses him good bye, she thinks he understands.)

 


	39. Phantoms

Her dreams are full of monsters.

They used to be simple.  She would dream of robots that lurk over her and the ground turning to sand while she walks to school, of Spidermans voice and her hand slipping out of his grasp, of her mother's face when they buried her and the way her father crumpled when he hit the wall.  Now, though, she just dreams of monsters that lurk in the shadows and how they're always waiting to grab her the moment she lets down her guard.

She's always running, in her dreams. As fast as she can, her breath short and legs shaky and every muscle burning, but she can still see the darkness coming from her out of the corner of her eye.  Sometimes its a person, someone with glowing red eyes to match their firetruck red lipstick, someone who sort of looks like Margot.  Sometimes its a wave of water that's about to swallow her up.  And sometimes she looks back and realizes it was not a monster at all but someone reaching out to her for help, someone she had just ran away from.

Those were always the worst.

When she wakes, the lights are always on, and she can see the softer light shining through her closet door, calling to her, promising her a place of safety if she would just cross the room.  But she doesn't let herself fall into that again, just squeezes her eyes shut and bunches the sheets in her fists.

"FRIDAY?"  She knows that she is okay if FRIDAY answers.  There is no way to hack FRIDAY, no way to replicate her.

"You're safe,"  It's not a real person, but it is a comfort.  "You're safe."

 

 

She and Peter are dating now.

It's been a long time coming, but it still feels like something new, something to be celebrated.  And she supposes it feels that way because it is something new, so she still gets butterflies in her stomach when she sees him waiting for her and changes her outfit ten times before going to meet him.  But its also easier than she thought having a boyfriend would be.

With Peter, its like breathing, like finding someone whose footsteps you can math without breathing.  She thinks its because they did things in reverse, falling in love before anything else, even if they can't admit it yet.  

"You're sure about this?"  He asks her every time he kisses her, eyes searching all over her face for a shred of hesitation, and he pulls away every time he finds one, even though she didn't think it was really there.  It is so different than the other boys, the one who would take and take and take without even wondering to think if she was ready to let it go.

This boy was all giving.

"I'm sure."  She always said, and it was like she was intent on devouring him, with how much time they spent together.  Part of Nora wants to make it so they're tied together in so many places it'd be impossible for him to leave.  She's so tired of people leaving her behind.  "I've never been more sure of anything in my life."

 

 

 

She wakes to another nightmare, and this time she can't even get the words out to ask FRIDAY for help, so she just drowns in the fear until someone's hands are on her shoulders and sitting her upright.  It should have scared her worse, but she recognizes tony by the smell, a bit like motor oil and a bit like the cologne he wears.

"You're okay."  The lights blink on and she flinches away from them, away from him.  They both stare at each other for a moment.  "I thought you were getting better."

"I am."  It was so frustrating, having this, how you think you are at the end but its really just another hole waiting for you to fall down into, so you have to haul yourself back to being okay.  You don't get to feel _good._   Okay is the best you can hope for.  "I'm trying to be.  It's just so tiring."

"What is?"

"Fighting it.  Working with it."  To anyone else, it would sound crazy, but she knew that Tony would understand.  He has cracks in the same places.  "Like, I can work with it.  Tie down the panic, shove away the bad thoughts.  And I'm fine, during the day.  But at night."

"You're asleep."  There are times when she fully appreciates having him as a father, and this was one of them.  "And you can't fight it when you're dreaming."

"I'm crazy, aren't I?"  It wasn't a new thought but it was a terrifying one.  "I was crazy before, and now I'm just broken."

"You aren't."  He grabbed her by the wrists to stop the scratching.  She'd gotten used to having Peter's bracelet to play with, and when it wasn't there, she clawed at her wrists.  The inside of her arms are decorated with scabs.  "You're healing."

 

 

 

The third time she wakes up and FRIDAY doesn't come on, she tears herself out of bed and follows the sound of the rock metal to the garage.  

Tony's there, in old jeans and a t-shirt, and doesn't see her until she's standing right in front of him.

"I changed my mind." she was still shaking, and her wrist was bleeding a little, trickling down over her hand.  "I want to be able to fight.  I want a suit."

He looks her over for a moment, then nods.  And then he throws a stack of files at her feet.  "You want one?"  It feels like the beginning of something, when she goes from being something weak to something strong.  "You build it."

 

 


	40. Regret

It's her fault.

She knows it is, even as she argues with him, even as she screams back at him and hurls words at his feet just for the purpose of hurting him.  It's the first time they've fought, the first time that she really had to face the full force of his anger, the first time she knows that she's done something bad and has to pay for it.  "Oh come on!"  She throws her bag into the chair, knowing that she stinks of cigarette smoke and the vodka slushy that someone spilled on her and that it wouldn't help her case.  "Like you've never done something crazy before!"

Tony opens his mouth, closes it again, and then shakes his phone in her direction.  "I'm not the one we're discussing.  I did stupid things, I admit that, but I'm also the first to admit that it was wrong."

"Then it was wrong!  Sorry!  Can we move on now?"

Nora hadn't really had to taste this side of being Tony's kid before.  The one that would take away her phone, and say she's grounded, and change the Netflix passcode without telling her.  The one who would tell her he wasn't allowed to see Peter.  "No, we can't move on!  I told you that you weren't allowed to go, and you went!  You went, knowing that you would get caught!"

"Ah, but I would get caught after the concert."  She had known that there was no way to make it out of the house undetected, but she also knew that there was no way that Tony could make it back from his meeting in time to stop her.  "I still don't get why you said no.  Everyone else's parents were fine."

"I don't need to give you an explanation!" He threw his hand up and the light exploded.  There had been a repulsor tucked under his sleeve that he forgot was there.  "You're my child!"

"Well, you're not my dad!"  She is not sure why she is saying it, when she had been so happy with officially being his daughter, when she was so grateful for everything he's done for her.  But there wasn't any denying that it'd been a hard year for her, so when she got the chance to be a kid, she was going to take it.  It had been a really good night, too, so to come home to this was a little awful.  "You can act like it, but we both know the truth.  You aren't him, not really!"

He closed his eyes, rocked back on his heels like he was absorbing the blow her words dealt.  "You don't have to like it.  That's another part of parenting, we aren't your friends."  He waved a hand at her.  "Just go to your room, okay?"

 

 

 

He shows up at her bedroom door the next day.  She hadn't come up for breakfast, and he was worried about her.  

"I brought you food."  Nora could smell the pancakes from the moment he walked in, and even with her back turned, she can tell when he sets them down on her bedside table.  "Came to say I'm sorry.  Would be nice if you would say it back?"

She didn't.  And she didn't know why.  That moment would come back to her, later, when she kept silent for no other reason than to spite him.  

"The last time I let you go to something, you disappeared for two weeks and almost came back in a casket.  That's why I said no.  And if that's unfair to you, I'm sorry.  But that doesn't change the fact that you broke the rules.  So, you're still grounded."  He rapped his knuckles on the door frame.  "that's about it.  Don't think about trying to leave, FRIDAY has the doors locked."

The door shuts behind him.  And even though she knows she should say sorry, Nora doesn't say a word.

 

 

She does, however, get to go to a fundraising gala three days later.

It was for some charity she'd never heard of, raising money to help some country she never even knew existed.  Nora had gotten pretty like she was supposed to, doing her hair and make up nd putting on a very expensive dress.  It makes her sad, because the whole ordeal of getting dressed up made her think of Evangeline, so by the time she's forced to walk arm in arm with Tony, she's in a bad mood.

"Still angry?"  He calls after her, when she forces on a smile and makes an excuse to slip away, but Tony doesn't really get a chance to call after her, because a women with diamonds dripping from her ears has come up beside him.

 _It's just a show,_ she thinks, watching Tony lean into listen to whatever the woman was saying, watching him throw his head back and laugh, looking for all the world like the man who had grown up plastered across magazine covers. _It's just pretend._

Nora had gotten good at pretending.  At pretending she was okay, that there wasn't all this anger bubbling up inside her, that even her good days weren't bad.  But acting is easier than being real, so when the first person comes up to pull her in for a hug she doesn't want and asks how she's handling things, she smiles and laughs and says all the right lines.

"You promise not to tell?"  She asks, smiling over at the man beside her as she picks up a champagne glass and downs it in one go.  

 _It's a game,_ she thinks, when she winds through the people to get to Peter, who was making his first public appearance since being announced as Spider-Man. _It's just a glorious game, and we're all playing to win._

 

 

"You alright?"  She tries to look at him and see if he is, really, but she can't tell.  He looks handsome, though, so she makes an excuse to touch him by straightening his tie and pulling on the cuffs of his sleeves, just something to do to distract her for a moment.  

"Fine." He tugs at the collar around his neck, trying to give himself more space.  "Just taking a moment."

Peter had told her before about the spidey senses and how they just seem to amplify things, how the senses are coming in at a million miles an hour and there's no way for him to dial it down.  It's handy in a fight but mostly just overwhelming, especially in a place like this, with a million lights and music and conversations swirling around them that he has to sort through, stiff suits and soft dresses and the burn of alcohol coming from all the way across the room.

She lets him take the time he needs, fending off the people who were coming up to shake their hands and congratulate them on a job well done, and also to ask questions about whether or not they were dating.  "Yes,"  She got to say now, and that was nice, to finally have an answer to that question that doesn't make her second guess herself.  "We got together that night after the whole Disney fiasco."

That's not technically the truth, but that's what the two of them decided on saying.  It makes a much better story, anyways.  

"How lovely,"  They all say, and they squeeze her arm like they're the best of friends, and the men clap Peter on the back like they're congratulating him.  "How darling, the two of you are."

It's exhausting.  They get tired of it eventually, so they melt back into the edges of the room and try to hide behind the waiters, Peter grabbing up tiny mouthfuls of food that won't even put a dent in how hungry he must be.  (Superhero metabolism is crazy fast.)

"Are you still mad at Mr. Stark?"  Peter's been particularly annoying about this whole mess, because a part of him can't help but agree with Tony and trying to keep her safe, and the part of him that had spent his life being raised by Aunt May didn't see the problem of being grounded when you broke the rules.  It's just how things went.  "Because you should really try and move past that.  He might let you back on Netflix."

"Yes, I'm still angry."  Being grounded wasn't the point.  It was the feeling that came with it, of being bottled up and caged in and not being able to leave, to run.  Nora had gotten rather attached to her freedom and the ability to just take off down the open road whenever she wanted, and after spending so long being at the mercy of other people, walking to a door and finding herself locked in the house was just shy of unbearable.  Tony got it (he made himself more suits whenever he felt caged in, so he could fly away at a moment's notice), but he wasn't going to go back on his decision until she actually admitted to it.  "And don't you start on me, too."

"Sorry."  He didn't sound sorry.  "It's just that it seems silly, for you to not talk to him over something like this. "

"Look."  She rounded on him, and then she took a step closer, because she knew that he still sort of lost focus when he tries to figure out where to put his hands.  This time, he goes with staring at the ceiling and not touching her at all.  "I know I'm being a baby. And I'll apologize to him tomorrow, I promise.  Don't I deserve to be a baby?"

Peter stared down at her, and then across the room to Tony, who kept cycling through and checking on them.  Peter had been the one who answered him, because Nora just crossed her arms and gave single syllable answers.  

"Just do it now, okay?"  He was using his _I know I'm right voice,_ the one that he pulls out when he wants to make her eat and coax her back inside when the walls had seemed to much for her.  It means that he won already, and it annoys her.  "It'll make you both feel better."

 

 

He's right.

Peter's always right, and he's right about this that she was being selfish and stupid and acting like a little kid, which you didn't get the right to act like anymore.  "You're officially a superhero now," He tells her, and its just because it makes her smile, not because its true.  "Heroes don't get to sulk."

"This one does," She said, but then she was handing him her glass of champagne (her third) and walking across the room, making a beeline for Tony.  He sees her coming before she gets there and breaks away from the person he was talking to, cracking a joke and making some excuse to slip away.

"What's wrong? Everything okay?"

"Yeah."  That's always how he greets her now, asking if she's alright and if something happened and if she needed to take a break.  Normally it's just another thing that makes her feel like she's being roped down, but now the concern in his voice makes her feel even worse than she already did.  "I just came over to say I'm sorry."

That throws him for a loop for a moment.  But then the mask slides back on his face and he tries to casual.  Tony isn't any better at receiving apologies than he is at making them.  It's like he's allergic to civility.  "You are?"

"Not for the concert.  It was awesome."  There's a ghost of a smile on his face, one that makes her think he's remembering all the reckless nights he can't bring himself to regret.  "But what I said, that was out of line.  And it's not true.  I just wanted to be mean."

He reaches for her, but then the conversation breaks off as he reaches around her to shake someone's hand.  they both slide back into their roles, smiles slipping down over their faces.  Nora's been a quick learner, and now she can play the game as well as any of them.

 

 

That's where they are when the men come.

It's something out of a spy movie, watching them burst through the window, swinging down to the floor among a shadow of glass.  There are screams, and people are running, women falling to the ground with their skirts spread out around them like flower petals and the trays in the waiter's hands crashing to the floor, the security team shouting and waving people to the nearest exits.

Nora doesn't have time to think, because then something hits her in the side and knocks her down to the ground.  The floor is wet, and it soaks into her dress, the glass on the ground pricking at her legs.  "Sorry."  Peter is crouched over her, his voice low and anxious.  "Sorry.  Just- stay here, okay?"

That's all any of them ever tell her when something likes this happens. _Stay here,_ Tony would have told her. _Stay,_ Natasha had said, shoving a gun into her hands and launching over the table and back into the fight.  And now Peter, who was just a kid, knocking her out of the way and shielding her like she's something that was only going to break. _Stay._

She was told to stay.  That probably would have been a good plan, except that there was one of the servers trying to drag a waitress back to safety, and they weren't going very far even though fight was very much coming to them.  Nora runs out without thinking about it, grabbing the girl under the other arm and pulling her forward, over the glass and spilled drinks and smashed food.  "Come on," She muttered, and from the corner of her eye she caught sight of Pepper and Happy by the back doors, waving everyone through.  "Just a little farther."

Only they didn't make it any farther.  They made it a few feet, and then one of the people stopped, and for a second, Nora was back in that white room with Margot in front of her.  Only this couldn't be Margot, Margot was dead, Tony had found her choking on her own blood, this was someone else.

"From the ashes,"  She said, her voice carrying.   Nora shoved the girl behind her, and the boy fell to the ground and scrambled backwards, but she needn't have bothered.  The gun was being aimed at her, not them.  "We will rise."

 

 

There is a small moment, between when she is made to stare down the barrel of a gun and when the trigger is pulled, that Nora thinks she is going to die.  She doesn't panic like she had the last time.  Before, she had been led like a lamb to slaughter.  Now, she had entered the fight, and then she had lost.  It was a different kind of ending, to have burned out rather than been snuffed.

The end, Nora knows, and she is only thinking of not having to fight anymore, not of all the things that she still had to do.  She was not thinking of the wedding, or of Peter, or not getting to go to homecoming with Eden.  She's just thinking of giving in, like it would be an easy thing, as simple as drifting off to sleep.

There's a bang, but no pain comes.  Instead, she's hit in the chest with a piece of metal and knocked to the ground, and others come, fitting together over her head. It's formed a dome around, a dome of red and gold stretching and shifting to act as a shield, one that would force her to buckle down to the ground and out of harms way.

When she looks up through the remaining gap, she can see Tony, his arms stretched out to her like he had thrown something and the suit dissembling around him.  The pieces were flying off of him and to her, joining her cage, melding together so she wouldn't be able to get out.  And nothing else would be able to get in.

 _A phoenix,_ she thinks, when she scrambles towards the one last opening but a shock throws her back, and FRIDAY's voice comes in from somewhere, asking her to be calm. _They're rising, like a phoenix from the flames._

 _And we're burning,_ Nora realizes, when she throws herself at the cage but can't break it, when she hears Pepper's scream, when she finally gives in and curls up on the cold floor. _We'll burn and burn until there's nothing left._

 

 


	41. The Lonely Pieces

Fear has a taste.

It's like metal, cold and bitter in your mouth, melting over your tongue and sinking down into your teeth like you're never going to get rid of it.  Nora had thought that she had had her fair share of fear, that once you go through so many bad things you stopped feeling it the same way you had before.

But that was before she had to huddle under a metal cage for an hour until a pair of hands reaching through and pulled you out.  She had to grab onto him and let herself be heaved back into the light ( _like being reborn,_ she had thought later, but that didn't make sense) tumbling that short distance back down the ground.

"Where's Tony?"  It was Peter that had pulled her out.  After the fighting was done, he had pushed past Steve and Natasha and ripped his way through the metal that had encase her, even though it shredded his skin and broke his fingers.  But she wouldn't learn that until later.  "Peter.  Where's Tony?"

He was the one to reach her first, so he was the one who had to tell her.  Nora knew the answer before he even opened his mouth.  "He couldn't..."  Peter swallowed, hard, and there were tears in his eyes.  This was hurting him, too, but Nora couldn't care about that, not when she was being ripped into pieces.  "Without the suit, he's just a man.  He couldn't take them."

"Did they hurt him?"  She looked over his shoulder to see the others, and all she could see was Pepper sobbing onto Natasha's shoulder.  That's what makes it hit home, because she had never before seen Pepper break down like that.  "Is he alright?"

"They took him, Nora."  Peter wasn't going to lie to her.  She didn't think he had the energy to, not when this was beating him down just as much as it was everyone else.  "We don't know where he is."

 

 

She falls back into the closet again.

Pepper comes to draw her out, even though Pepper is crying and exhausted and probably not willing to deal with this right now.  Still, she crawls inside, puts her back against one of the pillows and stares up at the fairy lights.  "Tony hung all these up, you know."  Her voice was scratchy, like it hurt to talk.  "I know you thought it was me.  But it was him. Said you liked to look at the stars and artificial ones would just have to do."

Nora fumbled for her hand and held it tight.  There had been no word from SHEILD, nothing from Stark Industries, and none of the Avengers were able to turn up anything, either.  And no body.

That was important.

"I was so mad at him."  Nora said, and when she finally started talking her face sort of crumpled up, until she was clutching Pepper and crying into her shoulder.  "I was so mad, and it was so stupid, and I was so _awful._   Peter told me it was stupid, I knew it was stupid, but I was just being stubborn."

"He loved you."  The words seem to tear their way out of Pepper's throat, and Nora could only think how selfish it was of her, to fall apart right when they all needed her to be strong.  "And he knew you loved him."

"But I was horrid."  She was gasping for breath now, on the verge of panic, right at the tipping point.  "I said such horrible thing.  Why did I do that?"

"You were being a kid."  Pepper smoothed her hair down, tried to calm her.  Maybe that was an excuse, but Peter was a kid and he had saved the country without telling anyone about it, Wanda was a kid and she had felt her brother die without falling apart.  "That's all it was.  You were just being a kid."

 

 

"With no word from either Stark Industries or the Pheonix, as the terrorist group has come to call themselves, we're being forced to face the facts."  It was a panel of newscasters, all of them putting in their two cents to argue over the fate of Tony Stark.  "He's dead.  It's time to admit it.  There's a whole in the Avengers, and he's dead.  SHEILD just needs to accept it and start working to replace him, because let's face it, we do need a replacement for him."

Nora watched for a few moments more before shutting it off.  His kidnapping had made headliines, all of them wondering about motive and if he would pull off another fantastic get away like the first time, or if there would be a ransom call like there was for Nora.  They were hopeful, at first.  But now a week has gone by with nothing but radio silence, and it was starting to look like they might never hear from Tony again.

 _With Iron Man gone, it proves that the Avengers can be taken down.  And without them, who's going to protect us?_   That seems to be the thing that everyone was circling around, like Iron Man was the first chink in the world's armor and every enemy might be just waiting to take advantage of it.  It didn't seem to occur to anyone that the Avengers were just a bunch of people doing their best, that they weren't some immortal, untouchable beings that would always be there. _They're all going to fall, and who's going to be waiting to take their place when they do?_

Nora walked to the middle of the garage.  She'd been here with Tony enough that it didn't take too many tries to have FRIDAY let her into the system and raise up the lights, or to have the holograms spread across the walls like she'd seen Tony do when he's trying to figure something out.

"Emergency transfer protocol, activated." Nora didn't think she would get used to FRIDAY's voice, but now she can tell that this was a new AI, one that wasn't properly fitted with a personality yet.  More of a robot than a human.  "How may I help you?"

Nora didn't want help.  She wanted to turn around and go back to her room, to stop standing on this cold cement floor in her bare feet, to get a shower and wash the dust out of her hair and the blood from beneath her nails.  But she also knew that even if she tried, sleep wouldn't come.

"Pull up his notes."  She threw herself into the chair, and DUM-E started up with a whir, coming over to nudge her hand with a half drunk cup of cold coffee that was leftover from the last time Tony was here.  It made a lump rise up in her throat.  "It's time to build a suit."

 _Every hero has beginnings,_ she thought, flipping through the pages and spinning around the room, sorting through his contacts and picking up tools she didn't yet know what to do with. _Maybe this is mine._

 

 

The world keeps moving.  For a while, Nora didn't think it would, didn't think it was possible that it could exist without a Tony Stark to keep it turning.  But it did.  The panic faded when there were no more attacks, the papers moved on to different headlines, and everyone but those who lived in the Tower seemed to forget about Tony Stark entirely.

"We have to keep going,"  Pepper had told her, when they both got tired of sitting on the couch and staring at the wall.  "There's no point in just sitting here, waiting for him to come back."

"You don't think he'll come back?"  Nora didn't want to hear Pepper give up on him.  When Pepper gave up on him, it was really over.

"There's been so many times where I watch him walk away from me, and I think that there's no possible way I'm ever going to see him again.  And then he always comes back.  But somehow," Her sigh was heavy, and it the sound of it made Nora want to cover her ears to block the words.  "I think this one might be the end."

So maybe that's why they decide to go ahead with the transfer of everything, why Nora and Peter were made to show up at Stark Industries on a Saturday when she would have rather not set foot near the place.  Instead, they had to walk across those shiny floors with everyone staring at them, everyone sympathetic and knowing exactly who they were, stand in that elevator and think about how Tony built this, how this was Tony's legacy, and he wasn't even going to see it.

That was bad, being reminded of him with everywhere they looked.  Walking into Pepper's office to be met with a man in a suit holding what must be Tony's will, was worse.

"I'm sure it's no surprise to you that Mr. Stark left you both a sizeable amount."  The man coughed into his sleeve for the fifth time since they walked into the room.  "It's pretty clear cut.  Just need to sign some papers."

"What do you mean, left us a sizeable amount?"  Peter's voice was dripping with derision.  Nora reached out to hold his hand, but he just brushed her away.  "I don't know what that means."

"His... his will.  In the even that something happened to him, it would be passed down to you.  And he left you quite an amount, young man."  He said it like they were supposed to be happy.  Like it was a good thing.  "Here."

He handed both Nora and Peter a copy of the papers in front of him. She didn't want to read it, but the words leaped up at her anyways. _Stark company stock....  savings.... stock account.... ownership of Stark Tower upon turning eighteen.... early access to trust fund.... ability to be Ms.Potts successor, should appropriate quotas be met..._

"What is this?"  Her voice sounded hollow and warped and wrong, and the man smiled in a way that he clearly thought was sympathetic, reaching out to pat her on the hand.  "Why would he do this?"

"Mr. Stark had a dangerous line of work.  He's been prepared for this for quite a while now.  Really, the only matter we need to be discuss is the retrieval..."

"I don't want it."

The silence in the room was deafening. "What do you mean you don't want it?"  He coughed again.  "You have to take it."

"I won't."  She stood up so fast that the chair banged to the floor.  "Not until we have a body."

 

 

If Nora had thought about what it took to get a meeting with the director of SHEILD, she had thought that it would be harder.  She certainly wouldn't have thought she could have just barged in and stood in elevators until someone took her to the top floor, and then marched up to the secretary's desk and demanded a meeting.

"Listen."  She was leaning over the desk at the intimidated looking boy behind it. "Maybe you don't know who I am.  I don't really care if you know who I am.  I just want you to know that I'm having a rough week, and am about to walk in that door, unless you want to stop me."

He didn't.  So she walked in.  It wasn't until later that she started to think that Fury knew she was there the whole time, that he wanted to talk to her.  Or at least didn't want to stop her from talking to him. 

"Nora."  He didn't try for a smile.  He didn't even look up from the paper's on the desk.  "What can I do for you?"

"I want you to find my father."  She didn't sit down.  It felt like she was more in charge when she was standing.  "Or if you can't, give me the ability to try and do it on my own."

 

 

He didn't want to.  He tried explaining about why it was a bad idea, how they didn't think there was anything to find, how if there was, SHEILD would have gotten there by now. _I would tell you it's impossible,_ he said, handing over the files and some super techy computer and a burner phone to get in contact with him. _But I once watched a video of your father flying a bomb into outer space.  So maybe if anyone can do it, you can._

Now she's sitting in Peter's apartment, the two of them crowding around the files spread out across the floor.  "How do you want to go about this?"

He would do whatever he asked her to.  Nora knew that, as sure as she knew anything.  "Like he's alive."

Because he was.  And they were going to find him.


	42. Legacy

Sometimes, time crawls.

Nora watches the seconds tick by, stretching on and on and on, one minute turning into the next.  She can't sleep anymore, and in the end, she always wanders out into the garage and picking through the files, starting a long line of trial and error until she was putting a suit together, piece by piece by piece.

"Oh God."  Wanda jumped the last stair, having run down from the guest room when she heard the bang.  Now she was clutching to wall and staring at the mess spread across the floor.  "What are you thinking?"

Nora grinned.  She was hovering, a mere two feet above the ground.  The instructions were all there, and the supplies.  Building it was like putting together a puzzle.  "Peter can be Pepper's sucessor."  That was another thing that they found in that will of his.  "I'll be Tony's."

 

 

They're in a coffee shop when it happens.  She and Pepper had just gotten back into their routine of going to brunch once a week.  It was comforting, to fall back into patterns.  

Someone bumps into their table.  Nora has to reach out to grab her water before it tips over, and the woman was already apologizing, talking about how clumsy she is and laughing.  "It's alright."  Pepper's smile was stretched too thin across her face but at least it was real.  "Happens to the best of us."

They wouldn't have thought anything of it.  The woman had nothing remarkable about her, and wouldn't have been someone they could have picked out of a line up.  But when she walked away, she left something behind.

"Pepper."  Nora had read about the rest of the room falling away, of not being able to move as the horror washed over you.  She hadn't thought it was real.  "Pepper, look."

Nora reached out and picked up the ring on the table, even though she knew she should probably just leave it lay.  But she couldn't, because there, right in the middle of this clean tablecloth and fancy china, was Tony's engagement ring, rusted over with blood.

(There had been a piece of paper, too, of instructions and guidelines, but Nora had picked that up and stuffed it into her pocket first before Pepper could see it.)

 

 

 

Nora wasn't allowed to talk to anyone about it.  Pepper had just waved her down to her room and said to wait for Fury to come down to her.  So she did, even though she filled the time with welding and trying to perfect her aim with the repulsors.

"Jesus."  He didn't sound surprised like Wanda had been.  "I just got one of you off my back, and now you're starting the whole story over again."

Nora landed with a thud.  "Find anything?"

"No."  His one eye was staring at her like he knew everything she wasn't saying.  "But I bet you did."

She doesn't ask him how he knew.  Instead, she just pulls the piece of paper out and spreads it flat out across the table, the one that said where she could meet if she wanted to trade her life for her father's.  

"Are you going to do it?"  Fury didn't tell her not too.  That's why she had hid it.  Pepper would tell her not to be stupid and then put her under house arrest.  fury would look at the bigger picture, about security and getting a superhero back, which Nora only liked because it worked in her favor.  "Because you can't do it alone."

"That's why I showed it to you."  She spun and fired the repulsor so it shattered one of the suits that Tony left behind, one that wouldn't open no matter what commands she tried or how often she attempted to pry it apart.  "I figured you would want to help."

 

 

He doesn't help, exactly, because that would be putting SHEILD in a mess that he couldn't dig them out of.  But he does agree not to get in her way, and wishes her the best of luck.

She's got a week before it happens.  A week before she walks into the arms of the people who had stolen her away, a week before she has to say good bye.  A week before she might die.

Still, she's got one last plan before she gives up, a lifeline that had been shoved into her hand on a airport tarmac, written in loopy lettering.

"Hello?"  The voice on the other end of the phone sounded French.  She liked the idea of that, that SHEILD has stolen her away to someplace nice.  

"Evangeline?"  There is shocked silence from the other end of the line.  "It's Nora.  If you meant what you said, then I need you."

For a moment, Nora thought that she had miscalculated things.  That this was not Evangeline, or that something had happened to make her not want to help her or unable to help her, or maybe, just maybe, it had been an empty gesture all along.

"Give me twelve hours,"  She said, and then there was nothing.


	43. Choice

As impossible as it seems, Evangeline does show up twelve hours later, soaked to the bone and looking like she hadn't slept in days.  Maybe she hadn't, but Nora doesn't care, because right now this isn't about being friendly or gentle or caring.  This is about preparing for the fight.

"What do you need?"  For the first time, Nora can fully appreciate the fact that Evangeline was a soldiers.  Soldiers take orders and do not argue about them, no matter how unorthodox or dangerous or how much they might not want to.  And for the moment, Evangeline was fighting on her side.

"I need you to help me make an escape plan."  She kicks open the door to the lab, revealing the spare parts and the blue prints and the half assembled suits that were strewn everywhere.  "It should be easy."

 

 

Nora has, if her count is correct, been in life threatening situations three times.  Each time, she had thought there was no way that she would be able to come out again.  And yet, each time, she did.

It was different, when you could see it coming.  When you know this is avoidable, and have time to imagine the different outcomes, the pain.  And even though she fully intended to walk away with both herself and Tony, Nora knew that it might not end up that way.

_Peter,_

She stopped writing for a while, because what was there to say, really, when you had to explain to the boy you love that you were going on a suicide mission without telling him?  There was nothing.

_I guess I should start with I'm sorry._

_I'm hoping that by the time this letter gets to you, I'll already be on my way back.  But I know that might not happen, so I thought I would write this just in case._

_I want to think that you would understand what I'm trying to do, how I need to do this.  Everyone has choices in life, and this is one that I'm making for myself.  I know it seems insane, but I also think that you get what I'm talking about._

_I'm sorry.  I love you.  I didn't want to leave you behind on this, but they would hurt you, and that scares me more than anything else._

_I love you,_

_Nora._

 

 

"Are you sure you want to do this?"

They are both sitting on the basement floor, the chill of it seeping through her pajamas and into her skin.  Nora and Evangeline had spent the better part of the week getting ready for this, making sure that it will work when it's needed.  And now it was the end, the last day, the now or never.  "I have to."

Evangeline picked up the needle that DUM-E had carried over to both of them, tossing it from one hand to the other, centering it in her palm like she was testing the balance.  "It's going to hurt."

Nora knows that.  She had read all about this in Tony's notes, how he designed the suit to come to him by attaching it to neurons, how the sensors sunk into his bones.  How the pain was like having bones broken, over and over, until they really settled.  How it didn't even work the first time.  Nora knows all this, and she also knows that she only has one try to get this right, or its all over.

"What doesn't?"  She hadn't meant it as a joke, but it was funny, suddenly, when you take into account of who they are and what they are here to do, everything they had gone through together.  And Evangeline clearly gets the joke, because even with all her training she still loses her composure, bursting into giggles and leaning against Nora for support.

They ride that wave for a long time, but Nora is the first to sober, stretching out her arm to Evangeline.  "Come on,"  She brings Evangeline's hand to her wrist, positions the needle so the tip is close enough to break the skin if the other girl would only push down.  "We need to get this done."

(Nora doesn't scream, but she comes close.)

 

 

She stops at Peter's apartment on the way there, even though time is running out.

When he answers the door its clear that he's just woken up, and the sight of his makes her want to break down and tell him the truth.  How they promised to look for him together but along the way Nora decided it was something she had to do one her own.  How she might be leaving him after she had just promised him as close to forever as they could get.

"Hey."  He smiles at the sight of her.  "What are you doing here?"

"Nothing.  I just wanted to drop in."  She's guilty for this, too, because these would be their last words, last moments, and Peter had no idea that he should be paying such close attention.  Nora felt like she was robbing him of something.  "Did I wake you up?"

  
"A little."  

"Okay."  she does not have time to stay, not really.  Nora just wanted to try and burn him into her memory, just so she could think back on it if she doesn't get another chance.  "I'll let you get back to sleep.  I just wanted to do something first."

"And what's that?"

He's smiling because he knows the answer, and she kisses him, a real kiss, the kind that she definitely wouldn't have done unless they were behind closed doors, that they've rarely gotten the chance to have.  And it hurts, because he is so happy when they break apart, even as she says good bye, even as she turns away from him, even as she trails behind and slips her letter under Aunt May's purse, where she knows it will stay hidden until tomorrow morning, and by then it will be too late.

 

 

It's a dark alley between two broken buildings.

She's in the car that Tony bought her, the one with the ability to reach NASCAR level speeds and the shiny paint that made Flash jealous when he saw Peter riding in it.  It looks out of place here, but that was sort of the point, in the hopes that it might be found faster.

If there's a part of her that wasn't to hesitate, to turn around, she doesn't let herself act on it, just gets out of the car and squints up into the corner of the parking garage, the one that was all lit up.  She doesn't know what's waiting there ( _and what's to say they won't just kill you?  Why should they take you anywhere at all?_ ) but she couldn't not try.

"It's just a game,"  She told herself again.  A game of heroes and villains, a game of courts and kings and all their many pawns.  "A game you need to win."

 

 

When she finally manages to pick her way through all the crumbled walls and cracked pavement, she is standing in an empty room.  There is a folding table and a chair and nothing else, just that stupid spotlight pointing down at the street so she knew where to go.

"Cowards,"  She says, and kicks out at the table, sends it scattering.  But not cowards, exactly, just people who are always one step ahead of her.  People who did not really expect her to show up.  People who, if she did show up, wanted to give her time to start running.

"Bastards," Nora spits, and that feels better.  Makes her feel more in control.  But even as she stares down around at the empty parking garage and at the single seat, she can't help but realize what this is.

A choice.

Margot had been all about choices.  They were blurred choices that she pretended were black and white, but they were choices: pain or safety.  Righteousness or betrayal.  Sacrifice or salvation.  And here it was again, the choice to run and leave Tony to the mercy of his captors, or the choice to take a chance on the notion that they might keep their word.

Nora circles the chair.  She digs her fingers into her wrist, so she could feel where the sensors connected with the bone and hopes the heat means that they are working, that somewhere a suit is activated and tracking her, just waiting for her commands.

And then she sits.

 

 


	44. As the Storm Rages On

There's a unique kind of torture in the waiting.

She doesn't like sitting there and just waiting, so she moves to the edge of the parking garage, her heels clicking on the pavement.  It scares her to think that she wasn't going to see the bad guys coming with her back turned to the entrance, but she wanted this last look more than the assurance of safety.

They're on the fifth floor.  Not quite the top, but no where near the button, so one push from behind or one misplaced step would send her toppling over the edge, the city swallowing up her screams and leaving no one to find her broken body below.  There would be no one looking, and nothing to look for, after Margot's men got her.

They are not the sort to leave fingerprints behind.

Or bodies.

Still, that doesn't stop her from climbing up on top of the cement barricade, edging forward so her toe are out in the open air with no solid ground beneath them.  Its the dead of night and she is in the bad part of town, so there are not as many lights as there would be in the very heart of the city.  Here, she can see the stars.

"I was here,"  She whispered, her breath steaming in the cold air around her, forming a sort of cloud around her face.  When she spoke, it felt like she was talking to everyone she had lost and all those she might be leaving behind tonight, as if they could be hiding up here beneath the stars.  "I showed up for the fight."  Nora wanted there to be some tangible mark that she had been here, like she could carve her name into one of the posts ringing the garage or chalk a picture onto the floor, but all she gets is this, these last words that no one will hear.  "I tried, and maybe I'll fail, but I gave it my best shot."

She hopes that counts for something.

 

 

When they come, she is sitting on top of the wall, legs dangling down over the edge.  She had seen them coming, scurrying over the ground like ants, and had heard their footsteps behind her.

Nora half thought they would come up behind her and end it right then.  Stand behind her and place their hands on either side of her head, twist until her neck snaps.  Pretend to be a friend and then shove her off the barrier and into the night air, not even bothering to watch her fall.  Maybe something worse, something bloodier, something that would hurt.  Anything to make it look like she was a good girl who got caught in the bad part of town, who stuck her nose into something she shouldn't.

But that doesn't happen.  It seems that Nora was right when she said that Margot had a thing for choices.  No one was going to make her come with them.

"We're not going to drag you off there."  A deep voice, one full of gravel, like this man had been smoking a pack a day since he was her age.  "You can come with us, or you can stay.  It's your choice."

Choice.  Such a funny word, both because it was true and it wasn't.  She wouldn't have to come with them, or stay quiet.  She could fight, she could scream, she could call Peter and ask for help, call Director Fury and turn this all over into the hands of the adults.  But she couldn't, not really, because that would mean leaving Tony to get beaten and broken just because she was afraid.

Nora gets to her feet, and then turns to face them.  She is on her tip toes, leaning against one of the poles for balance.  There are ten men in front of her, all of them with guns, sent to escort her back to Tony.

For a fleeting moment, she is tempted to topple backwards.  To end it before it could start.  To stop the fight.   But she isn't the type to give up.

"Hello boys."  Nora jumps down and sticks the landing, straightening up in the way she had seen Natasha do in some of her action shots.  Calm, collected, confident.  In control of herself and everyone around her, like she was the one calling the shots even when there was a gun pointed at her head.  Someone who couldn't fail.  "Shall we go?"

She leads the way, all of them trailing behind her.  Nora steps are quick and careful, because she knows that one wrong move could put a bullet in her back, and she wants to be facing them when she dies.   She'd already decided that much, at least.  

There's a limo waiting at the bottom floor, sleek and shiny, with tinted windows.  She can't see who's inside, and Nora hesitates despite herself.

"You don't have to."  The man with the gravel voice is beside her, talking softly, like he wasn't in favor of taking out their anger on children.  That's what she was, in spite of everything.  Just a child.  "You can still walk away."

"No."  Her voice breaks and she blinks back tears, stares up at the sky one last time just in case.  "I can't."

He sighs, and then steps in front to hold the door open for her.  "After you, princess."  He sounds resigned, and Nora knows that as sympathetic he might be, he wouldn't step in to help her.  From now on, she was on her own.  "Let's get this show on the road."

 

 

When she steps into the limo, she is still trying to tell herself that she is the one in control.  That she is calm, confident, just as dangerous as everyone around her.  But then she gets seated between two armed guards and finds herself staring at one of the most beautiful men she had ever met, and realizes for the first time that she might be a bit out of her league.

He doesn't bother to look at her, but Nora looks at him, trying to burn the sight of him into her brain.  He's dressed to match the expensive feel of the limo, his clothes dressy enough to show that he comes from money but still casual enough to make it seem like he isn't trying.  In her high heeled boots and leather jacket, Nora almost feels like she should have made more of an effort.

(Who knew there would be a dress code for vigilante justice?)

"Hello."  She tries to make her voice sound like Natasha's and Evangeline's do, soft and seductive, like the person listening to her should be hanging onto every word.  She can't quite pull it off.  "I'm Nora."

"I know who you are."  He's still looking out that window, but she does see a shadow of a smile flicker across his face, like he thought she was funny, or cute.  Anything but a threat.  "I was wondering if you would take the bait."

"You're implying that you trapped me."  He's got hair the color of mercury, and there are loose strands falling down over his face, but he doesn't bother to brush them away.  He's still as a statue, except for his hands, which are constantly fidgeting- running along the edge of the seatbelt he wasn't wearing, moving to check at something hiding in his pocket, twisting the heavy silver ring he wears on his finger.  "I was under the impression that I came here under my own free will."

"You made it here on your own two feet, but let's not pretend that you thought you had any other choice."  He sounds like it aggravates him.  "Either come with us, or never see your father again.  Quite an ultimatum."  

He turns to face her and she flinches back, expecting him to try and grab her, but he only leans forward.  When he does, his face is thrown into the light for the first time and she forces herself not to look surprised.  

He (whoever he is) has two different eye colors, but that wasn't what made her want to catch her breath.  It was the scar running down the side of his face, red and angry, like it had just begun to heal even though she knew it was old.  It twisted his features into something hateful and angry, and when he smiles again, the skin stretches and warps, like a mask he never gets to take off.

When he's sure that she sees, he turns back to the window, and he looks normal again.   From this vantage point, you could never tell what was lurking just out of sight.

 _He's still quite beautiful,_ she thought, wondering if he was going to look at her again. _Even with the scar._

"And how'd you know I was going to show up?"  Nora wanted to keep him talking, because that meant he was going to give her some information, whether he wanted to or not.  She wanted to know where she was going.  "I could have turned that ring over to SHIELD, and then you'd be out your bait and have nothing to show for it."

"We knew you would come.  People like you are so predictable."  

"And what exactly do you mean by that?"  She wants to reach over and slam his perfect head through the window, just because he was infuriating, but she doesn't.  "People like me?"

"The ones who think they can save everyone.  Heroes.  They're all the same."  He makes a noise in the back of his throat, and then turns back to face her, his pale hands stretching out towards her.  This time, she doesn't move, even when his fingers trail across her cheek.

"You don't mind, do you?"  He was holding a piece of cloth between his hands, offering it up to her.  A blind fold.  "We can't have you seeing where we're heading."

She doesn't answer, but he moves toward her anyways, because her opinion no longer matter.

For the first time, she really was out of choices.

 

 

They don't take the blindfold off, just drag her out of the limo, leaving her to stumble over a gravel driveway and up a set up steps.  Every time she trips, someone to the side of her grabs her by the arm and yanks her back to her feet before she can fall.

"Careful."  Silver (that's what she'd decided to call him in her head) made a clucking sound with his tongue, and then his hand was on her back, guiding her safely through the doorway.  He actually sounded disapproving, like he doesn't want her to be hurt.  "We don't want anything to happen to our guests."

 _Guests._   A strange word, but as good as any.

Nora almost thinks it isn't going to end, and then she's taken by the shoulders and thrown back into a chair.  The armed guard from the limo was the one who took the blindfold off, ripping it away instead of untying it, and took some of her hair with it.  

"I said don't hurt her."  Silver's voice cut across the room.  Apparently, she wasn't to be harmed while she was with him.  "My apologies."

Nora blinks, and the room spins into focus.  They're sitting across from each other in arm chairs, a fire roaring in the granite fireplace beside them.  Off to the right, there are giant picture windows that would open up to sprawling lawn, but she wouldn't see that until later. 

"I didn't want them to hurt you."   He reached out to her, maybe to check that the damage wasn't too bad, but when she jerked away, he let his arm fall back down.  "That wasn't my intention, for you to be harmed."

Margot had been like this.  She didn't like to think of what she was doing to Nora as cruelty, either, just as an unfortunate means to an end.  Something that couldn't be avoided.

She wanted to ask what his intentions were, but that seemed like giving in, so she went for something else.  "What's your name?"

He stared at her, his fingers on his ring, twisting, twisting, twisting.   "Janus."

The name called up a vague memory of English class, with her friends back home dragging their feet through a Shakespeare play.  "That your real name?"

"No."  He smiled, like he was pleased that she was taking an interest.  "But did you really think it would be?"

Evangeline never gave her real name, either.  Maybe none of them had their real names anymore.  "I don't suppose that you can let me and my father leave, Janus?"  She dug her nails into her palms.   "We can put this all behind us."

"No."  He smiled at her a little sadly.  He looked lonely.  "I can't do that.  I would if I could."

"Are you playing nice, now?"  Last time, she had been greeted with fists to the face.  Now she was being treated like she was an honored guest.  "Going to let me make demands?"

He spread his hands out in front of him.  "If its in my power,"  He smiled at her, charming and gracious and handsome, "it's yours."

"Let me see Tony Stark."  This is what she had came for, the proof that he was alive and okay.  "Take me to my father."

Janus stood up, smoothed his hair back, and then a held out a hand to her.  And after a moment, she took it.

 

 

He's in a bedroom, tucked in the very back of the mansion.

This time, there is no secret underground hide out.  No endless rows of white hallways with the bright lights that make your bruises stand out with extra clarity.  No basement of cells, no armed guards.  This time, it is high vaulted ceilings and chandeliers dripping crystals, thick carpeting and servants that never smile, heavy oak doors that serve to silence the screams that may be waiting behind them.

This time, they are hiding in plain sight.

Janus leads her to the second floor, up a set of marble stairs and down to the very end of the hallway, and then steps back to let her push open the door.  Inside, looking battered and a bit thinner than she remembered but mostly okay, was Tony.

"Tony."  She's across the room in seconds, and even though she knows she should be gentle, Nora still flings herself at him.  He clutches at her, and then pushes her away to study her at arm's length, like he can't believe that she's here.  "You're okay."

Nora looks over her shoulder for a moment to see Janus nod at her, and then the door closes with a click of a lock.  They are trapped in here, but Nora doesn't care.

"What are you doing here?"  Tony was still hugging her, smoothing her hair back from her face, checking for injuries.  "How did they get you?"

"I came for you."  It seemed stupid, now that he said it.  He was Iron Man.  He didn't need rescue parties.  But maybe Tony Stark does.  "I'm here to save you."

Tony groans, then pulls her into a hug.  "There's no way.  Even with the two of us, you won't get out, there's no way to overpower them, and there's nothing in here to build into a weapon-,"  He waves a hand around the room.  "No tech."  He looks crushed, finally defeated, and that pisses her off more than anything that had happened that night.  "We're stuck here, Nora."

"No we're not."  She pressed in on her wrist, watching it light up, and hoping against all odds that a thousand miles away, something similar would be happening in the garage, a corner of the workshop suddenly lighting up with the force of a shooting star and coming towards her.  With any luck, it would be here by morning.  "I've got a plan."  He stares down at her wrist, at the light that sputters and dims, then dies down entirely.   "You just have to trust me, Tony."

"I do."  He presses a kiss on her forehead, and then back away, checking the doorknob one time, in the hopes that they might have made a mistake.  Nora wonders how many times he had done that over the course of his stay here.  "I just hope you know what you're doing."


	45. Peter

His girlfriend was missing.

Not missing, exactly.  Missing implies that they had no idea where she went.  Missing refers to things like that one sock that always finds its way behind the dryer, or the piece of homework you swear you turned in but the teacher never graded.  Missing doesn't apply to a person.

It's especially not true in the case of Nora, because they knew exactly where she went.  She left enough breadcrumbs, both in her internet history and in the notes she left behind for everyone she thought she should say good bye to.  Aunt May finds one tucked in the bottom of her purse addressed to him, and he got another sent to his email a day after she went disappeared.

_I had to try._

_I know you don't get why I thought I had to do it alone.  And I know you wish I never tried.  But you told me yourself: when you've got the opportunity to help, and you let the bad things happen anyways, then it's like a small part of them happened because of you._

_I can't take thinking that this is happening when I could try to stop it.  It's going to kill me, to have that weighing me down for the rest of my life.  And this is my fight, too, one of my battles that I have to win._

_None of us are going to be safe unless we finish this, once and for all.  I'm doing this to protect myself, too, don't think I'm not._

_I've got a plan.  It's not a good one, but it's the only one I've got.  Fury's in on it.  Pepper isn't.  And I had to leave you in the dark because I knew you loved me too much to let me go through with it._

_But I have to go through with it, because there are people I love that in danger all the time.  Because I love you, and they know it.  Because I loved Tony, and they promised to let him go if I showed up._

_I'm hoping that's true.  I'm hoping I can come back to you.  Maybe I won't.  But I'm going to try.  that's all any of us can hope for, anymore._

Peter's read it over so many times he had it memorized.  The techs from Stark industries went through it, and said that she had it on a delayed timer.  Like, if she didn't log in within the next 48 hours, then all these instructions would be sent out.  Passwords changed, good bye notes sent.

MJ was with him when he read it for the first time.  She had her own letter, but that one had come in the post the old fashioned way.  It was all about how she was going to change the world, and that MJ was a hero, too.  Just because her battles were quieter doesn't make them any less important.

 _You guys are going to change the world,_ Nora had written, and MJ let Peter trace the indentations her letters had left, choking back tears over the curl of the g and the tilt of the t's. _I just hope I'm here to see it._

"She's going to come back."  MJ had said, in that voice she had.  She's told him a lot of things in that voice, like _we're going to win the decathlon again even if I have to do it myself_ or _she's going to say yes to prom_ or _everyone's going to find out you're Spider-Man eventually, you might as well rip the band aid off now._   She was one of the smartest people that Peter had had the fortune to meet, and she had yet to be wrong when she told him something in that voice.  That voice meant a promise, and MJ had yet to break her promises.

"How do you know that?"  He was crying, tears slipping down his cheeks and his breath coming in ragged bursts.  It was worse that MJ got the paper letter, because he can see where Nora's pen pressed harder into the paper or where that water spot meant she was crying.  Thanks to his spidey senses, he could even smell her, just a faint trace of the perfume she always wore.  

"She's Nora, remember?  She's the girl who walked away, and kept walking."  MJ had both her hands on the sides of Peter's face, forcing her to look at him.  "The one who saved that little girl as she was falling through the sky, and just kept saving people- you, me, those kids at Disney, and now she's going to save her father.  She's stronger than any of us give her credit for."

"But what if she's not strong enough?"

MJ wasn't there, the first time.  She didn't see Margot, the stiffness that seemed to turn every bone in her body to steel, who was incapable of compromise.  She hadn't met those guards, who always wore brass knuckles when they hit them and had tobacco stained skin, the ones who were there because they were paid and liked pain.  She hadn't seen the money and the power that dripped from every inch of that place, how even when they tried to burn it all to the ground it had stayed standing, the foundations strong.

And those foundations rebuilt, better and even more unbreakable than the first time, and they came for Nora.

"Because she has to be."  MJ was crying now, too.  It hurt Peter to see that, because in a different world, the one that he had been heading towards, it would have been the two of them that loved each other and no superheroes to care about and only normal people pain, the kind that comes when your girlfriend's parents never come home and the kids at school make fun of you.  He can still see that life in his head, but it wasn't the one they were given.  

In this one, he's a superhero who doesn't know how to save the people he cares about and his girlfriend goes missing, and this time there's no guarantee he's going to be able to find her, even though he and Ned and MJ haven't stopped trying.

"Because she loves you, and you love her."  MJ reached over to grab his phone, closed the tab so Nora's words disappeared.  "And she's not going to walk away from that."

 

 

 

 

Nora's famous again, and by extension so is Peter.

People are always talking about them, because she's Tony's daughter and he's Spider-Man, but it hadn't been at this level in a while.  Now, her face was painted across every magazine and newspaper and every news channel was reporting the nonexistent updates on her story, making little details sound like improvements when everyone knew that they were no closer to finding her or Mr. Stark than they were in the beginning.

"Maybe you shouldn't watch this."  Aunt May said, when Peter had traded doing his homework for searching the web for any story that has had to do with Nora.  He's collecting information, stockpiling useless facts that he's convinced himself might help later. Pictures, locations, family ties, people of interest.  They're taking up all the folders in his filing cabinet, and the back wall of his closet has been transformed into a map of leads that take him no where.  "It can't be good for you to listen to all this."

Aunt May didn't know how to help.  Peter had been used to being able to turn to her for anything, to fix any problem, but it seems they have finally reached a place where he would have to do it on his own.  "I have to."  He spins around in his chair, from her to the keyboard and back again, not sure what to do but knowing his has to do something. "I'm going to find her."

"Honey."  Aunt May had that sad smile on her face, and he knew what she was going to do.  He's been sad enough times around her that he knows the routine, how she's going to come and smooth down his hair and tell him everything he's going to be okay, and normally he would feel better, but not this time, because now things are not going to be okay unless he makes them that way.  this time, it is up to him and him alone.  "Have you started thinking that maybe this time, she's not going to come back?"  Aunt May sat down on his bed, preparing for one of their talks, where she is the adult who knows better and he is only a kid who has to listen.

But he's not a kid anymore.  He's seventeen, which isn't much but is older than he was.  He's Spider-Man.  He's fought alongside Iron Man and held his own against Captain America.  He's formed a web solution that's stronger than any rope or wire ever produced.  He's fallen from skyscrapers and stopped inches before the pavement, stopped muggers and rapists and robbers and never asked for a thank you.  He's been a hero, and now it's time for him to step out from the shelter that was Mr. Stark and stand on his own.

This time, he was going to have to save the day by himself.

(Like, not really by himself, cause Ned was helping and MJ was popping into different news agencies and law enforcement headquarters and pretending to be a student who wants information, but more alone that he had been.)

"She's not like you."  Aunt May was crying.  He wanted that to stop, too, because she's always crying and he's pretty sure it's his fault.  "She's only human."

"I know she's not like me.  There aren't many people in this world like me." He was human, too, and the girl he loves has gone missing.  He's human, but he's more than that, which means he would break the city apart until he found her.  "Thanks for the pep talk, Aunt May, but I think I've got this."

 

 

He doesn't.

Peter hasn't given up hope, exactly, but he has stopped thinking that he's going to be the one that finds her and moved his faith to the hands of SHIELD and the FBI instead, because they've got a bigger data base than he does.  He can't save her, he knows, but he can save everyone else, which mean that he's tripled the amount of time that he spends being Spider-Man, swinging through the streets and stopping every crime he sees.

So far, he's tied three rapists to a tree and didn't tell the police about it until the next morning, shut down a puppy mill, helped a guy get away from his abusive boyfriend and back to his parents house, and shut down a drug deal that happened to involve Flash, which meant he had a perfectly good excuse to throw Flash into a dumpster.

Twice.

Part of him knows that he's only doing this to distract himself.  The other part just keeps moving through it, like he's doing it all so that when Nora comes back he can tell her all about it, prove to her that even if he couldn't find her, at least he was doing something.  That he was trying to be a hero, even if it wasn't the one he needed.

 

 

One thing about being outed as Spider-Man: people start to look for him.

He's gotten used to running intro crazy fans when he's out on patrol, girls that want to take a picture with him or guys who want to fight him to prove something to their friends, kids who hang out on the streets just on the off chance that he might swing by and say.  It's why he doesn't think much of it, when he sees the girl the first day and the second.  But by the third, when she's proved herself to have an uncanny knack for guessing which street he's going to be on and showing up one step ahead of him no matter how hard he tries to lose her, he's starting to get suspicious.

So he watches.  He's hiding up on a fire escape, so Peter's pretty sure that she can't see him, but he can see her, the way her figure cuts through the crowd milling in the streets.  She moves with purpose, dressed all in black despite the heat wave the city was going through.  Each time he's got sight of her, she's dressed like she's expecting people to look at her and wants them to know that she's prettier than they could hope to be, in an effortless sort of way.

She also looks like she could kill him without any powers, which is why he starts to think she's a superhero.  It's the only reason he follows her, memorizing the way she moves and how no one she passes ever seems to remember her other than a vague memory of what might have been a flash of red and black moving through the crowd.

Red hair, black clothes. _Like Natasha,_ he thinks, and that's really the only reason he figures it out.  So the next time she passes by an alleyway, he reaches out a grabs her, drags her back into the shadows and trying not to think of the headlines if anyone had seen.

"What are you doing here?"  He throws her into the wall, pinning her there right above the trash bags.  She's laughing, and that annoys him, so he hits her, even though he promised himself he would never hit a girl.

When he lets go, she doesn't get her feet underneath her in time to catch herself, so she falls into a heap on top of the trash bags.  "Jesus, Peter."  She coughs, rubbing at her neck until she can breath again.  "Didn't think you had it in you."

"Where is she?"  It's not a coincidence, that Nora would disappear that and then she would show up trailing his heels.   "What'd you do to her?"

"Who said I did anything to her?"  She smiled, and he could see the blood that was staining her teeth.  Peter couldn't tell if she was actually thought this was funny or just trying to make him feel bad for how hard he hit her.  Probably both.  "I'm a SHIELD agent now.  Maybe Fury put me on your tail."

"Bulllshit."  He was shaking, he realized, seconds away from punching her so hard that her teeth would scatter through the alley.  Everything that had happened was her fault.  Her fault that he and Nora had got taken after Prom, her fault he was outed as Spider-Man at all, and now it was her fault Nora was gone, even if he couldn't prove it.  "You know where she is."

"Yeah."  Then she winces, rubbing at her shoulder, and in spite of himself he relaxes, because even if they had found themselves on opposite sides, Peter knew that neither of them really wanted to hurt the other.  She had saved both him and Nora, in the end.  "I mean, no. I know where she went, but not where she ended up."

Peter stared at her, and then ripped the mask off, because it was starting to make him feel stupid to have it on.  "That doesn't make any sense."

"I know.  I tried to help her, but I think we screwed up and I don't know how to fix it."  Evangeline pushed herself up and away from the wall, and it helped Peter a bit to see how much she hadn't changed.  She still expected everyone to fall into line behind her.  

"Why should I trust you?"

Evangeline smiled for real, then.  "Because you don't have any other choice."

 

 

 

Peter stared down at the work table in front of him.  

"A suit?"  Up until this moment, he had been half expecting someone to jump out and try to kill him.  It would have been a nice change, to have something to fight.  "What for?"

"For Nora."  Evangeline spun around in her chair and wheeled over to him, holding out a notebook.  "I thought you were smart, Peter."

"If she had a suit, why's it here?"  It was just a hunk of metal, now.  There wasn't even an AI telling him what to do.  "Why wouldn't she take it with her?"

"If she had it, they wouldn't have taken her to Tony.  She knew they weren't going to let either of them go, so she was going to bust both of them out."  Evangeline flicked a finger of the suit, and it barely moved.  "The plan was to have this attached to sensors, and then she would call for it."

"Where are the sensors?" 

"With her."  Evangeline winced.  "In her."

Peter punched the wall so hard that dust fell from the ceiling.  He wasn't used to being the kind of guy who punched things, but it was either the wall or Evangeline.  And from the look on Evangeline's face, she knew what he would rather be hitting.

"And what happened?"  He stared down at it.  "Why didn't it go?"

"I don't know.  Everything was fine, and I expected it to fly away at any moment, but then around five hours after I left her, it just...."  She shrugged.  "Went dark.  Dead.  And it stayed that way."

Peter nodded, and then tossed his phone at her.  She caught it, looking surprised.  "Call for Chinese."  It's what Tony always did, when he was looking at a long night.  "It's going to be a while."

 


	46. The Angels Are Falling

"I'm sorry."  She was still stuck in that same room with Tony.  Nora was sitting in the window seat, staring out over the dark lawn, at the crumbling statues that loom out of the grass like monsters and the fountain that had coins glittering at the bottom, towards the tree line that seperated them from the rest of the world.

There was a fence there, hidden somewhere a mile away.  It's on all sides, caging them in.  The only way to open them up is with a remote, and it's all buzzing with electricity.  Janus had taken her out on them her first day there, to the very edge.  He made her hold her fingers an inch away so she could feel the buzz, have the hairs on her arm stand up from all the energy.  And he showed her the animals that had tried to cross, too, their bodies burned and rotting on the ground where they fell.

(There had been so many.  Birds, bunnies, deer, and even a dog, a spot of darkness in all this expensive beauty.)

The dirt had stained the trail of her dress.  Nora's been wearing ball gowns and expensive suits since she got here, and every day a girl comes in to do her hair and make up, thanks to Janus' decree that she was going to be treated only as a most honored guests, except for the fact that she can never leave.  Nora can still see the dress she wore to the fence, crumpled up on the floor beside the bed where it had fallen when she tore it off, a reminder of what was waiting if she tried to escape.

"I was so stupid."  Tony doesn't respond, just keeps working at picking the lock, biting his lip between his teeth.  "I thought I could come here, and bust us out.  That everything would be okay."

Nora just kept talking.  it was the only thing left for the two of them to do, talk in order to keep themselves sane.  As far as Nora knew, Tony hadn't left this room since the first day, but Janus comes for her sometimes, just to talk to her.  

"I guess I got used to being around heroes."  The hair pin in Tony's hand broke, and he cursed, loud and angry.  "Thought I could be one, too."

"Don't worry."  Tony looked over at her from his spot on the floor, holding the broken pin in his bleeding hands.  "I'll get you out of here.  I'll make sure of it."

_that's what I had thought, too.  But there's no way out of here._

 

 

Janus calls her for dinner.

She's in a gown that sweeps the floor, and it makes her lean on him to help her down the stairs.  Janus likes to have her dressed up, like she's a doll for him to use any way he wants.

But that's not quite right.  Most of the time, when he takes her out of her room and shows her some aspect of the house (the dining room, the lawn, the library, the ball room), it's like he's lonely, looking for a friend, even if that friend is one that has to be there.  He's perfectly polite, and the one time that Nora had let herself get so angry she slapped him, he didn't yell or hurt her back.  He just blinked, and told her he really was sorry that they had the unforutnate aspect of the kidnapping between them, and asked the housekeeper lurking in the shadows to take her back to her room.

If things were different, or if Nora was especially sick of being on her guard all the time, she can even pretend that they were friends.

"Tell you what."  Janus set down his fork and smiled at her.  He'd finally stopped only letting her see the one side of his face.  Before, he would always walk on the left side of her, so she would see the part of him not marred by the scar.  Now, though, he would look at her straight on.  "You want to leave.  I want you to like me."

Nora didn't say anything, just took a long drink from the champagne in front of her. He's made no secret of how desperate he is for a friend, or the fact that he didn't see any reason for her not to be that friend.

( _Nothing inappropriate,_ he had assured her, the first time he broached the subject. _I know you've got that boyfriend waiting for you, the Spiderboy.  Purely friendship, is all I ask._ )

"I don't want to keep you here.  That's not my choice.  That comes from someone much higher up than me.  But if you were to escape-,"  He spreads his hands out in front of him, like he's not able to finish the sentence.  "That's not to be helped, is it?"

Nora stares at him for a moment, then scrambles to her feet.   She sees the shock on his face when she grabs for the knife, but he doesn't move to stop her, just leans back in the chair as she runs.

She actually thinks she might make it.  At first, it is only a maid that steps up to stop her, one that Nora can break past just by lowering a shoulder and slamming into her.  But then it is a butler, still holding his plate of champagne glasses as he steps out in front of her.

"Miss."  He doesn't break composure.  "I'm going to have to ask you to lay down the knife."

Nora laughed, shifting on the balls of her feet.  He didn't look strong, but she knew that he was.  "Just let me go past."  She held the knife out, and knew that even though he was perfectly innocent, just trying to make a paycheck for whatever reason ( _these are desperate poeple, all of them, none of them truly bad_ ) she would have no problem doing what it takes.  "I don't want to hurt you."

That makes him smile.  "Last chance, miss."

Nora took a deep breath, and took one last look around for a second option, at the marble staircase and the gold gilded bannisters, back towards the dining room, where Janus was no doubt waiting for her return.  If she were to turn around and sit back into her spot, he wouldn't say another word about it.

That would be the safer option.  But she still hasn't given up hope, yet.

In the end, it was a quick fight, ending with her on the ground and the wind knocked out of her, the knife gone.  Janus and the butlers face swam in front of her.  "I'm sorry, miss."  The bulter really did sound sorry, and he gathered her up in his arms, the skirt of her dress trailing on the ground.  "I really did try to warn you."

 

 

 

"Jesus."  Tony said, when she walks back into the room.  "What did they do to you?"

They don't ask each other if they're okay, or what they did.  There's no need for that.

"This wasn't them."  She muttered, reaching down and unlacing the stupid heels that Janus likes her to wear.  "This was all me and my stupid pride."

Tony laughed.  They've started to be a little happier, now that they've realized niether of them are in immediate danger of being publicly executed.  Her friendship with Janus did one good thing.

"Been there."  Tony said, tilting her head back to look at the lump growing under her eye.  "You'll get used to it."

 

 

 

Janus takes her for another walk, this time through the towering hedges and rose bushes that he calls the gardens.  

"I just don't get the two of you."  He sighed, like he's disappointed.  "Am I going to have to make the doorknob electric, too?"

"No."  She massaged at her shoulder, which was still aching from the mornings fight.  "I doubt we're going to try that again."  Tony had finally gotten the door open, and the two of them had made a run for it.  This time, they had gotten all the way out to the lawn, where they were promptly subdued by a trio of gardeners.  "Might want to take our bedsheets though.  We're planning to make a rope and climb out the window."

Janus smiled and laughed.  In spite of herself, Nora laughs a little, too.  It's probably some sort of stockholm syndrome, but she feels like they're actually friends.  "Are you really?"

"No."  She kicked at a stone, followed it down the path, and kicked it again.  "I'm scared of heights."

"The Girl Who Walked Away."  He had stopped walking, and led her over to sit on the edge of the fountain instead.  The white stone seemed to glow in the moonlight.  "Something like that had to leave some scars."

It left a lot of scars, actually.  Down her back, across her arms.  Nora didn't like to think about them, but sometimes she couldn't stop.

Janus, though, seems only to be refeering to the one across the inside of her palm.  That one she barely even thinks about anymore.  Truthfully, she doens't view any of them as bad things, just the price she had to pay for surviving.

When Nora looked up from her hand to his face, he is tracing his own scar, but stops when he noticed her looking.  "You haven't asked about my name."

"Janus?"  She shrugs.  "You said it wasn't your real name."

"Yes."  He inclines his head to her.  "But you haven't wondered why I picked it?"

"Alright, I'll bite."  She turns to face him, the thin fabric of her dress rustling beneath her.  It was cold tonight, and he had wrapped his suit jacket around her shoulders, ever the gentleman.  "Why did you choose it?"

"You know anything about Roman mythology?"  When she shakes her head, he presses on.  "He's a god of beginnings, and doorways, and time.  He's got two faces, because he's always torn in two directions- the past and the present."

"And what are you torn between?"

"Nothing.  I've just got the face for it."  Sharing time appears to be over.  "Come on.  It's getting late.  Let me take you back to your room."

Like she said: ever the gentleman.

 

 

 

"I just don't understand."  She was pressing in at her wrist again to see the momentary glow, hoping that it would come alive each time, proving that somehow her plan was still going to work, even if there had been a delay.  "why didn't it work?"

Tony was looking down at her arm, too.  "Probably the tracker."  He turned her wrist over, and she hissed, because even after all the time between the injections and now, the sensors still hurt.  "You know we're going to have to get those out of eventually, right?"

More surgieries.  More scars.  "What about the tracker?"

"My guess?"  It wasn't a guess.  This is tech, and Tony knows everything there is to know about tech, including why it won't work.  "They thought you might have something hidden on you.  A bug, a phone, a GPS signal.  And instead of searching you, they just used an electromagnetic pulse to knock it offline."

"Will it come back online?"  Nora felt like crying.  Without the suit, they had no escape plan.  Without the suit, no one knows where they are. Without the suit, they die.  Even with everything, Nora hadn't quite accepted the fact that she had lost.

"If someone on the other side does it.  If they can get the suit online, then you go online."  

"How will we know when that happens?"

Tony looked, for the first time, like he might have a shred of hope.  "Because it's going to hurt like hell."

 

 

 

Her final meeting with Janus was in the ballroom.

"I wanted to tell you that I was leaving for a while."  He's dressed in all grey.  He looks like a shadow, with his pale skin and silver hair, the only marks of color being his eyes, one pale blue and one lavendar.  "But they're under orders not to hurt you."

"And if they disobey?"

She was rediculously overdressed again, but her clothes matched the setting, with the velvet curtains and the shining floor.  In the corner of the room was a record player and three servants standing at attention, ready to jump into action.  Not that she could run away in a skirt this heavy.

"You won't be harmed."  He stepped closer to her.  "I give you my word."

 

 

On his last night at home, they're back in the ballroom, dancing.  

Nora had thought that she would be afraid of him.  Part of her had thought that she had been acting all along, but now that she was in his arms, she realized that she wasn't even the slightest bit worried of what he might do to her.  She was as comfortable with him as she was with Ned.  

"You're the only one who doens't flinch away from me."  Nora could only hear him talking because they were so close.  "Who doesn't cringe when they look at me."

"Why should I?"  She reached up to trace a finger down his side, right along the scar.  "You're beautiful."

They were dipping into some strange area, one that she knows that she won't tell Peter about for as long as she lives.  She doesn't love him, and she doesn't want him, but a part of her can't help but feel bad for Janus, with his lonely life and scarred face, stuck in this mansion to carry out someone elses dirty work.

Janus' breath turns into a shudder, and he pressed his head down into her neck, hiding his face while he regains his composure.  When he resurfaces, his eyes are shining.  "You could stay with me. Here, by my side, forever.  No one would ever hurt you again.  You'd never have to worry about being a hero to anyone."  He caught her arm by the wrist and held her palm to his cheek, scar against scar.  "All you have to do is stay."

She hurt for him.  That's the feeling, here, Nora realized, caring about someone that you shoudn't care about, having to walk away even when you want to help.  Still, she thinks about it, about turning away from her life with all the worry and the hurt and the poeple she can never protect, to stay here with him, have someone else call all the shots. It would be a nice daydream, but she would hate it in the end, spending her life as a pretty thing stuck in a cage for other people's enjoyment.

"And my father?"  She stepped away from him, her fingers trailing across his face as went, running down his arm until they can no longer touch.  "Will you let him go?"

Nora could stay, if it meant he would be safe.  She thinks she could even be happy here.  It's always easier to give in than to stay strong.  

"No."  Janus swallowed hard.  "I can't do that."

"Then I can't stay."  She felt like crying.  It seems like even though she keeps being asked what she wants, the answers are already there.  "But you must have known that."

Janus smiled, eyes bright, and laughed.  "Never know until you try, right?"  Then he held his arms out to her.  "One last dance?  Before you go breaking my heart."

Nora laughed, and then stepped into his arms.  "One dance."  She would carry this moment with her for the rest of her life, wondering what she was doing, what she was playing at.  "And don't forget that you're breaking mine."


	47. Tony

She's burning.

It almost hurts to hold her, with how hot her skin has become, and even thought Tony knew this was going to happen, he was not prepared for it, could not understand how her skin was not smoldering, why she was not burning before his very eyes with the amount of heat growing within her.

He knew, even when she began screaming, that this was a good thing.  Her pain meant the sensors had come online, all of them kicked into action all at once instead of under her direction, giving her no time to acclimate.  He had warned her of the pain, but she would not have imagined it could feel like this.

Even he couldn't imagine the extent of it.  He was trying to hold her, but the heat rising up from her was scalding his hands, burning him in a way it was not her.  Every inch of her was lit up like the glow of a neon sign, her veins showing up in shadows and her bones lit up inside her like bones.  He can see the shape of her ribs shining through her shirt.

"Help me!"  He lets her go and switches to pounding on the door instead, hitting it so hard it would bruise his fists.  Tony would find out later that he had fractured the bones instead, but at the moment he only cared about getting that door opened, finding someone who would help, because he couldn't.  For the first time in his life, he had no idea what to do.  "Somebody, please!"

The door is thrown open so hard that it bangs into the wall, putting indents in the plaster.  Janus ( _Tony had found his name out from Nora_ ) was standing there, still looking like he had stepped right out of  fashion magazine even though it was two in the morning.

He spots Nora before Tony can think to start explaining, which is good, because Tony didn't have the words for what was happening.  All he can do is watch as Janus kneels on the ground beside her, watch as he gathers her in his arms, smooths the hair away from her face and does his best to calm the shaking.

It must be burning him. His clothes are smoldering, smoke rising off of the fabric, but he hangs on, and Nora arches up towards him, towards his touch and his voice, like she knew he would be able to make it better.

"It's alright."  Janus just kept murmuringt to her, like he could make it true if he said it enough.  He looks scared, but also calm, and when Nora goes limp in his arms without him even batting an eye, Tony has to wonder how many people he had seen die.  "You're going to be alright."

(Not, of course, that Nora is dying.  She's going to live, they'd gone over the design enough times for Tony to know that there isn't going to any lasting damage.  The pain would even go away once her body adjusts.  But there was no way for Janus to know that, so he probably thinks one of his charges is dying, which now that Tony stops to think about it, is probably really bad for him.  The only reason no one touched Tony was because Janus wanted to keep Nora happy.)

Janus stood.   As he stared down at her, it was the first time that Tony had seen him be completely still.  No twisting his ring, no snapping orders.  Just calm.

"What did you do?"  He says, in a voice so low and controlled that Tony knows that this boy is not new to the game, that he has seen stranger things than a girl bursting into light in the middle of his home.  Janus turns to Tony and grabs at the collor of his shirt, tearing the expensive fabric as he shakes him, once, twice, like he thought that would be enough to make him talk.  "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything,"  Tony said, and knew from the look in Janus eyes that he could tell it was the truth.  "This was all her."

 _We've won,_ He could have said, and that would have been true, too. _Do you see her, do you really know what this means?  This means that people are coming for you, all of you, and they're bringing hell with them._

 

 


	48. the fight comes for you (there is no point in running)

She's on fire.

That's what she thinks, in the split second between when the light blinds her and the pain hits, where suddenly every inch of her is glowing, and that's not right, so she turns to tell Tony, to hold out her arms and say _what's going on, help me, please_ but she doesn't because she no longer has the air to speak, but it doesn't matter, because she is falling, falling, falling, and when she wakes, the world is falling apart.

"Nora."  Janus was crouching in front of her, and she blinks at him before pushing herself upright.  She's on one of those old fainting couches that women used to have to use all the time back when they broke their ribs with their corsets.  Nora hadn't thought anyone actually still had them.  "Nora, what have you done?"

"What happened?"  She could remember lighting up, and she could faintly remember someone holding her, whispering it to her that it would all be over soon, and then darkness.  In the back of her mind, she knew that also means that there was a suit flying to her with at the speed of a jet engine, and that there would be others following- Fury, Natasha, Bucky, Peter.  The whole force of the Avengers would be coming to tear this place apart.  "Why am I here?"

Janus stood up, walking over to the fireplace.  When he places his hand on the mantle, its shaking, and for the first time noticed the fire poker swinging from his hand, and the holes dotting the walls all around the room.  "You know something, Nora?"  He was choosing every word with precision, desperately trying to hang onto his polite façade, to not cross a line.  "I trusted you.   I really did.  And I thought you wanted to stay with me."

"Tony-"

Janus whips around, throws the poker to the ground.  "I know about Tony.  I know you cared about him, were willing to fight for him, to die for him.  And I admired that."  He was breathing heavily.  "Loyalty is an impressive quality."

Nora stayed silent, still, like any move could set him off.  She thought she could handle Janus, but she was wrong.  

"You were trying to leave."  Janus knelt in front of her again, put her hand on his cheek like he had that night in the garden.  "Why would you do that?"

"You kidnapped me.  You kidnapped my father.  We had to leave."  She didn't understand why she kept finding herself in situations like this, explaining to people why what they were doing was wrong, how they couldn't keep taking from other people and assuming that just because they managed to get it, it was theirs.  "No matter how good of friends we are, I never wanted to be here, Janus."

He laughed, softly, then shook his head, his silver hair falling over his face, brushing against her legs.  "No.  You didn't.  But you are now, and we are friends.  And friends forgive each other for their mistakes."  He straightened up, and when he went to cradle her cheek in his hand, she let him.  Nora was too afraid of what might happen if she didn't play along.  "But I'll fix it."

Janus doesn't motion for anyone, but suddenly there are two sets of hands on her shoulders, pinning her back down to the couch, holding one arm out to Janus.  He's got his back to her, but he can still see what he's doing- the tray of instruments beside him, the antiseptic that was spilling off his hands and down to his feet. 

"This is going to hurt."  He's smoothing her hair back the way he did when she was on the ground, on fire and unable to tell anyone how it felt, but this time it is not comforting.  "But it'll be over.  And you can stay with me."

"No."  nora didn't get how this was going so wrong, how there could be so many people she thinks she can trust and ends up being betrayed by.  How so many people out there only exist to hurt others, and how she keeps managing to find them.  "I told you, I don't want that, I want Tony, I want to go home."  Then, throwing all caution to the wind-, "I don't want _you,_ Janus."

"It'll take a while."  He was wiping her arm down with antiseptic, and she stayed still, thinking it wouldn't hurt as much if he did it right the first time.  "But you'll be happy with me, eventually, Nora.  I did promise."

 _And we all keep our promises,_ she thought, watching the knife be lifted off the tray and be carried across the room, getting closer to her, closer, closer, closer.

It probably would have hurt very much, if he had ever been given the chance to cut her.

 

 

 

Thinking back, it was almost funny.  It took ten hours from the time the sensors went on line and the suit arrived, blasting through the fence and the wall and into the living room, hitting Janus so hard it broke his arm and sent him spinning, the knife going off in the opposite direction.  It comes to her and fastens around her arm, forming a glove over her hand, and Nora could have almost cried when she saw that the repulsors were alive and intact.

"I didn't want to hurt you."  She stared down at Janus, the way he was groveling on the ground, curled up to protect his broken arm.  The servants had already gone running.  "But that was when I thought you weren't going to hurt me."

"Please."  He still didn't get it, even when she was standing and strong and he was on the ground, broken and sniveling.  He was a weak thing, in the end.  All the monsters are.  "I just wanted us to be together."

"But I didn't."  The heat was still flowing through her, but it was warm now, not an unbearable burn.  More a candle flame than a wildfire.  "Didn't that matter to you?"

He might have had an excuse ready, another lie about to drip off his tongue, something to stop her, but she wasn't listening.

The first blast was off, and it hit him in the shoulder instead of the chest like she had intended, but the second hit home, right over his heart.  

"You people never think of that, do you?"  She whispers, listening for the rest of the suit to come and not hearing it.  Maybe the arm was all she got, but that would be enough.  "You don't care what other people want.  Not even enough to think you might be wrong."

In the end, Nora doesn't even stay to watch him die, just walks away.

 

 

 

It's almost fun, to tear it all down.  She doesn't want to hurt the other people, those guards that were posing as gardeners and cooks and cleaners, but when they ran at her with guns ready and fists flying, she didn't have a choice.  Nora was too tired to be gentle, and her father was still locked in that room.

They're probably good people.  People with bills to pay, with gambling debts, with hospital bills for their sick child piling up on the kitchen counter.  She knows that, knows that they aren't evil, but that doesn't mean that they had the right to have kept her here.

She misfires, so the steps crumble underneath her and she leaps the last two.  Nora lands on her hands and knees, and immediately has to roll away to avoid the next round of guards.  They just keep coming, wave after wave of them from rooms she had never been into, but they stop when they see her.

"Just walk away."  The repulsor was ready to fire, and she almost wanted to cut through all of them, just to make them pay.  "Walk away and let us go, and I won't hurt you."

None of them are that smart.

 

 

 

"Tony."  She blasts the door open because it's faster, and then helps him to his feet.  Janus hadn't hurt her, but he had made no such promise about Tony, and it showed.  There were new bruises on his face, and from the way he was limping, it wasn't the only time they hurt him.  "It worked."  Nora buckled under his weight, but drug herself another few steps, trying to get them out.  "We can get out of here."

Except they can't, because people kept coming to lock her back up and no matter how often she fires, there's two more taking the place of the one she took down.  "Tony."  He was slumped against the wall where she left him.  He must have been hurt bad for him not to be trying to help her.  It seemed like she was on her own.  "Tony, we have to move."

"I can't."  He was in a lot of pain, clutching at his side, and there was blood spreading across his pant leg.  She hadn't noticed it before.  "You need to go, Nora."  He grips onto her hand, hard enough to make it hurt.  "You need to run."

"No."  She turned away from him and fired five times in a row, using a larger blast, because they wouldn't stop running at her and it was really pissing her off.  Nora didn't realize one place could hold this many people.  "I'm not leaving you."

"Listen to me."  He was using his Iron Man voice.  The voice of Tony Stark, not regular old Tony, the one that led industries and could make entire countries fall if he wanted to.  "They called for backup.  More of them are coming.   And you won't be able to fight that many, not on your own, not without a full suit."  He was panicked.  For the first time, they were looking at odds they would not win, people they could not outsmart.  "You need to get out of here while you can."

"No."  It was breaking his heart, she knew, to see her keep fighting when they both knew they would lose.  She would not leave him, not when she came this far to bring him home, so Nora stands to face the people waiting for her.  "I'm not walking away from this one."

She raises her hand, preparing to use up the last of the charge to clear the way and maybe grab a gun or two before she drags Tony out of the house, but then a blast of lightning shocks through all of them.   There's a massive hand on her shoulder, but that leaves quickly, probably because she still feels like she's on fire.

"You did good, kid."  Thor smiled down at her, and out of one of the big picture windows, she could see the rest of them coming- Sam flying, Clint and Natasha running, and Peter crouching on the hood of a convertible that was flying down the front drive.

(Her convertible, with Evangeline driving it.  From the looks of it, they had used it to break down the fence.)

"It's over?"  

"Well, not entirely."  Without looking, Thor punched another approaching guard in the face so hard that teeth went flying.  "But the professionals can take it from here, alright?"

Nora didn't answer, just slumped down beside Tony and tried to stop the bleeding in his leg, but she thought he knew the answer.

 

 

Peter comes to find her.  

She could hear him more than see him, because he likes to talk when he fights, and he offered everyone a chance to reconsider before he started fighting with them.  Nora thought it was sweet, but Bucky had said before that it was pretty annoying.  

"I hate you."  He didn't really mean it, because he was hugging her tight even though it must be burning.  "Why would you- we should have done this together, I could have helped you, you trusted Evangeline over me, of all people-,"

Nora knew they would have to talk about all of that later, but for right now she just wants to kiss him, so she does.  That probably burned him, too, but he wasn't complaining.  "I love you."  She couldn't believe that he was here.  "I love you, I love you, I love you, and I should have said it a long time ago, and I'll say it a million more times, but for right now, you need to go kick some ass, okay?"

Peter blinked down at her, a little dazed, and then nodded.  "Okay."  He kissed her one last time, burns be damned.  "But I'll be back.  Don't move."

Nora didn't even have the chance to ask where he thought she was going before he was gone, using the Chandelier as a launching point.  It was especially satisfying to watch it crash to the ground afterwards, all those crystal spreading across the floor.

Beside her, Tony groaned.  "Evangeline?"

She hadn't told him that part, but really, it wasn't the time.

 

 

When it was over, she found Evangeline in the gardens, right beside the fountain.  Janus was at her feet.

"He wasn't dead.  Just in a lot of pain."  Her throat was thick with tears when she spoke.  "I couldn't leave him there, so I took him out here."

Nora hadn't stopped to think about the people that might have loved him.  No matter how bad of a thing you've done,  no matter how horrible a person you think someone is, there are always people out there who will mourn for them.  "Did you know him?"

"He was my brother.  The oldest of three."  She scrubbed at her eyes, smearing blood on her cheek.  "He took it really hard, when my..."

 _When the other brother died._   Nora didn't have to hear her say it to know that that was what happened.  It was the catalyst that led them all to this.

"I know he did bad things."  Evangeline added, when the silence stretched on for too long.  "But when things first started getting bad... when mom went crazy, when our whole lives got turned into some sort of spy training, he was the only person I could lean on.   And then he made up that crack shit name, Janus, and got just as bad as her.  Like he really believed it."

He did believe it, but that wouldn't help anything.  "What was his real name?"

"Allen."  Evangeline laughed.  "Mine's Maggie."

Nora laughed, even though she didn't think she would ever be able to laugh again.  "You look more like an Evangeline."

"Yeah."  Evangeline smiled through her tears.  "I thought so too."

Nora knelt down and did what Evangeline couldn't see to bring herself to- she closed Allen's eyes, the blue one and the purple.  Without them and his name, he didn't seem as special or scary.  Just a boy who got led down the wrong path.  

"Come on, Evangeline."  Nora held out a hand to her.  "Let's go home."


	49. when the world stops falling (we finally make a home)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, this is drawing to a close. After this, there's one more chapter and then the story of Nora is put to rest. Hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I have.

When the news gets out that both THE GIRL WHO WALKED AWAY and Iron Man were safely recovered, the whole world goes into an uproar.

She's become their favorite person overnight, and Fury had to assign agents to go through all her fan mail and make sure there was nothing dangerous.  Everyone seemed to think that this was some sort of a Cinderella fairy tale, where she got lifted out of nothing and became more than she could ever dreamed, living with a nice house and surrounded by heroes, getting a great family and a great boyfriend, all the while leading to the moment when she would become a hero herself.

And maybe it was that story.  The fairy tale, where someone comes to save her and Nora never has to worry about the ugly parts of the world, because she knows they can handle it, as long as she can stick together.  Or maybe its the old fashion kind of fairy tale, where before you get to the happy ending you have to go through a lot of pain and suffering, where the ugly stepsisters slice off their toes to squish into the shoes and people you trust are actually evil queens in disguise.

Either way, Nora was happy to be back home.  There had been a time where she couldn't imagine ever calling the tower that, but now all she wanted was to sit in the kitchen and listen to Pepper and Tony bicker, to have the living room be a revolving door for scientists and superheroes alike, to be able to lock herself in her room and have Jarvis carry down the messages that other people are leaving for her when he dutifully tells him that she's out with Peter.

But before that happens, they have one more thing to do.

"You ready kid?"  Tony tries to smile, but since he was still sore it was more of a grimace.  "First ever press conference."

Pepper had set it all up for them.  Said this had raised questions from the public that need to be addressed.  She had promised it would only be the reporters they liked.

"Of course I'm ready."  Nora helped him shrug on the jacket, and they both pretend not to notice how bad it hurts him.  "The people love me."

He smiles and rests an arm around her shoulder, managing to turn a need for support into a fatherly hug, then partially opens the door.  It lets in a wave of sound, and they can hear Pepper talking to them already, giving the general statement they had agreed on.

Tony was hesitating.  This was always his least favorite part, and she knew that it was the last thing he wanted to be doing, seeing as how much pain he is in, so she leads the way.  "I've got this."  She pushes the door open and smiles into the sudden flash of the lights, waves a hand in greeting an slows her pace to match Tony's.  "We just have to keep smiling."

 

 

 

It wasn't bad.  The reporters were just as well behaved as Pepper promised, none of them shouting questions, all of them letting them take their time before answering.  She wouldn't mind taking over for Pepper a few times, just for fun.

"Last question."  Tony said, smiling patiently down at all of them.  "This one's got homework."

It wasn't really a funny joke, but they all laugh anyways.  They all laugh when Tony makes a joke, no matter how lame.  

One reporter steps up and out of the crowd, which was cheating, but Tony clearly thought it showed initiative, so he picked him.  Nora would have chosen anyone else.

"This ones for Nora, sent in from our listeners."  He's got a microphone sticking out to her and a Bluetooth in his ear, no doubt broadcasting their every word to some radio or podcast.  "We heard that you had a suit made for your rescue mission.  Do you have plans to continue the Iron Man legacy?"

She had, once.  Nora had liked to think about how she'd be able to fly around the world and fix things, but lately, she's realized that there's a lot of pain and problems right in front of her, and they just need someone to pay attention to them.

"I don't think I'm cut out to be that kind of hero."  She tightened her grip on the podium, trying to channel her inner MJ and make the words come out right.  "There's a lot of things to fix in this city.  A lot of quiet battles that need more people to fight in them.  So that's where I'm going.  But if I'm ever needed, the suit's there."  This would be replayed on every news station and twitter feed for the next week.  "Starks aren't the kind of people who walk away from a fight."

 

 

 

Evangeline's waiting for them both out front, leaning against the car.  She's officially on Nora's guard duty, mostly because Tony demanded an agent from Fury and Nora refused to take anyone else for the position.

(Peter said she was soft, and Tony said she was stubborn, but Nora knows the truth.  She just has trust issues.)

"Ms. Stark."  Evangeline grinned at her as she opened the passenger door and ushered her in.  "Where to?"

Later, there would be things to worry about.  People to save, benefits to host, fundraisers to hold.  Relationship problems to work through, and eventually, another round of doctor's visits to get these stupid sensors out of her arms.  But for right now, for what was maybe the first time in her life, she didn't have to worry about any of that.

"Anywhere you want, Eva."  They'd shortened it, to give her a name that hangs onto the past while giving her room for the present.  The ability to reshape herself into something new.    "Adventures await."

Evangeline got in the driver's seat, shoved her sunglasses up to the top of her head.  "You're the boss, Nora."  She threw it into drive, and then they were moving, cutting through the crowd and into the open road.  Nora throws her hands up and lets her hair streaming out behind her, trying to memorize this feeling, of what it means to be young, young and brave and lovely, and above all alive.

It is one that she is trying to keep for as long as she can.

 

 

Peter comes over for dinner.

Pepper is there.  And Tony.  And Natasha and Bucky and Thor and Bruce, all of them switching between updating on the official situation of the Phoenix group and saying how glad they are that they all ended up okay.

"It seems to strange, that it's over."  Pepper says, and Nora can not help but agree.  It feels weird, to have been able to walk away from the fight, like getting to the place where you are okay takes just as much getting used to as the bad thing did.  Like the fear had made a home in you, and now you have to find something to fill up the hole it left.  "What are we going to do now?"

"Well,"  Tony reached out to her and she met him halfway, because moving still hurt.  Since Tony insisted he was fine and tried to act like he could do everything on his own, you had to anticipate every move before he makes it.  "We've got a wedding.  That still in the plans?"

Bucky made a sound that might have been a cat-call, and then Pepper giggled, leaning into Tony.  He let her, even though it must have hurt.  Under the table, Peter tries to hold her hand, and Nora lets him.

"Yes."  Even with everything, Nora had never felt happier.  Maybe this time she would get to keep it.  "That's still on the agenda."


	50. The Wedding

They have the wedding a week later.

It's not what they intended.  There are no matching bridesmaids dresses, and no fancy fold for the napkins.  The flower arrangement is wrong, and they had to get two smaller cakes instead of one big one.  Pepper's not even in her real dress, which was designer and cost over ten thousand dollars, but in something that she picked up from a thrift store that had a weird stain on the hem.   Instead of going off without a hitch, it was a last minute jumble, with no one sure where they were sitting or what they were going to eat at the reception or what time anything was going to start, but they all agreed afterwards that it was the most beautiful wedding they had ever sat through.

Because Nora is the maid of honor and Peter is the best man, they get to escort each other down the aisle.  She's nervous and too afraid she's going to trip, but it's better knowing that he's there to catch her.  When she gets to the end, Tony hugs them both before they take their places.

"It's happening kid,"  He mutters in her ears, and he looks so damn happy that it makes tears spring to her eyes.  She tries to blink them back, but ends up having to wipe them away the whole way through.  "I finally did it."

Pepper looks beautiful, walking down the aisle in her second hand dress.  The bouquet was made from flowers that Peter had picked out from his Aunt May's rooftop flower bed, none of them matching and all of them slightly wilting, but it seemed to match better than a professional arrangement.  When she gets to the end of the aisle, she takes Tony's hands and lets him pull her close to whisper something in her ear.  Whatever it is, it makes her cry.

They wrote their own vows.   Nora had to read Tony's over three times the night before in order for him to read it out loud today.

"Pepper Potts."  Tony's eyes were shining.  "I spent a lot of time thinking about what I could say that would sum up my feelings better than I love you, but I finally came up with this: most of my life, I spent running away from everything and everyone.  I was hiding, but no matter where I went, I'd look to my side and have you be right there with me, pushing me to be better even when I thought that wasn't possible.  And when I thought that there was no point in going on, _no way to go on,_ I'd look at you and know with my entire heart that I was wrong, that as long as you were willing to stand with me, than there must be something worth fighting for."  Nora was crying, and across from her, so was Peter, both of them smiling through the tears.  "I know you don't like that suit.  I know it scares you.  But every time I go off to fight, I'm doing it because of you, and the thought that no matter where I'm at, there is always someone who is counting on me to come back home."  He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.  "You're the only reason I'm still breathing, Pepper Potts.  So I guess all I'm trying to say is this: stay with me.  For the rest of my life, always be the person that stands by side and reminds me to keep fighting, okay?"

Pepper's crying, but her voice is steady when she talks.  "When I met you, I didn't like messes.  And I didn't like chaos.  I liked things neat and organized, everything placed in boxes that can be checked off and filed away.  And then I started working for you, and Tony Stark, you had the messiest, most chaotic life that I could have imagined, and suddenly I couldn't find out how to get away from you." She stopped to wipe away her tears.  "And one day -I don't know when- I stopped wanting to, because I realized that with you and all your many messes, my life was better. I loved you and all your chaos, because I needed someone to draw me out of that box that I was living in.  I was so afraid of leaving that box, but I was more afraid of not being a part of your life."  Pepper tucked the piece of paper she was reading off of away, like she no longer was unsure about what she had to say.  "When I walked into work that first day, you told me I had made the worst decision of my life. But I didn't.  In this world, there aren't many things I have faith in, but you, Tony Stark, with all your chaos and catastrophe, are one of them.  And I am so, so grateful for that first day, because it led us to all of this.  To our little family."

Nora was grateful for that, too.

 

 

Peter stands on a chair to get everyone's attention, but they don't really quiet down until Thor bellows for them to fall silent, that the boys of spiders was going to speak.

"Um."  Peter threw a nervous glance at Nora, who gave him a thumbs up.  "Thanks, Thor."

"When I realized I had to make a speech, I thought it would be easy to find great things to say about Mr. Stark.  About how he's the smartest man in the world and that his inventions shaped history, about how he was a hero, how his family loves him.  But then I realized that everyone in the room, everyone in the world, already knew these things, and I had to do better, so I came up with this instead."

Peter looked down at Mr. Stark, took one deep breath like he was steeling his nerves, and then pressed on.  

"When I was younger, I lost someone really close to me.  My Uncle Ben.  And I remember, right after I was told about it, how I sat in my bed and decided that there would never be someone who could care about me that much again.  How I'd lost not only my real father, but the only person that could come close to filling his shoes, and the universe wouldn't give me a third chance.

"But later, shortly after I became spiderman, I realized I was wrong, because then I met Mr. Stark."  Peter swallowed hard, eyes darting around the room.  "He came to me because he said he needed help, but I think that in the end, it was more to help me. Give me someone I can look to, turn towards when I needed help.  At the time, things were going pretty bad.  I didn't know how to handle my powers, and I didn't understand the responsibility that gave me."

"But he made me see it.  Made me understand that it's not all fun and games, when you have these abilities.  That you've got a responsibility.  And he helped me, steering me down the right path.  It wasn't just with the powers, either- it was with school, with girls, with college searches.  I don't know where I would have ended up without him.  Who I am today, everything I've done and will do- it's all because of him.  I wouldn't have been able to make it this far without it.

"No one can replace my dad, or my uncle.  Tony wasn't trying to fill their shoes and become a surrogate father or anything, all he wanted to do was reach out a helping hand to a kid from queens.  And even though I learned a lot from him about being super and about mechanics, I learned something else."  His hands were shaking.  "The world wasn't done with me yet.  They were going to give me one more chance at finding that person who's there for you and who's going to lead you through the dark times without asking for anything."

Peter climbed down from the chair, and Tony stood to hug him.  "I love you, Mr. Stark.  Don't know what I would have done without you."  He was choking back tears.  "I'm glad you're back."

"I love you too, kid."  Tony was still hugging him, choking back his own tears.  "So much."

 

 

There's a father daughter dance instead of a mother son one.

Nora thought she would be nervous about having everyone look at her, but she wasn't.  It was hard to be nervous when you were Tony.

"I am so proud of you."  He said, eyes shining.  She hadn't pegged him to be the kind of person to cry this much.  "You know that, right?"

"I do."  They weren't really dancing, just swaying back and forth.  "And you know I love you, right?  And that I'm really, really glad that you're my father."

"I know."  He spun her around, and her skirt flared out the way it does  in the movies.  This whole thing was picture perfect.  "We're going to be alright, kid.  I can feel it."

 

 

 

There was one more thing that Nora had to do before she was able to put it all behind her.

And that thing involved Bucky.

She corners him around the time that the cake was cut under the guise of making sure that he had gotten something to eat.  He looked pleased to have company, but also overall uncomfortable, but whether it was from all the people or the fact that he had to wear a suit, she couldn't tell.

"So you're alright?"  He taps at her wrist, which still had the tendency to start glowing at inopportune moments.  "They're going to get that taken care of?"

"We've got a doctor all lined up.  But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about."  Nora tried to gather her courage, to tell herself that even if he said no, she'd be fine.  "I have a question."

"Shoot."

"You want to be my god father?"

He actually chokes on his food, which probably isn't a good sign, but it did break the tension.  "You want me to be your what?"  He wipes the icing from the cake off on the table cloth.  "Nora, I don't even go to church."

"That's not the point."  She wasn't going to let him say no.  He can be a self sacrificing idiot some other time.  "The point is that I don't have god parents.  Tony said I get to choose.  So I chose Natasha, and I chose you."

"Why?"

He was confused, because he was still caught up in who he had been and what he had done, and Nora knows he thinks that taints everyone around him.  She wasn't there to absolve his sins, but she does think that this might give them both someone extra to hang onto when things get rough.

"Because family isn't always the people you get stuck with.  More often than not, its the people you choose.  And I choose you, Bucky Barnes, because I think you deserve it.  So what do you say?"

He says yes, of course.  It's hard to say no to the girl who practically came back from the dead.

 

 

 

Peter finds her out on the balcony.

It's too cold to be standing outside in a dress this thin, but she likes the chill of the night air on her skin.  It dulls the heat that seems to always flare up inside her now, and maybe it serves as an extra reminder that she is actually here, alive and well.

"Their vows were amazing." He comes up beside her, placing his hand beside hers on the bannister, close enough so their pinkies were just barely brushing.  

"So was your speech."

He wrinkles his nose at her.  He's probably heard it a hundred times already.  "Do you know what I think, Nora Reynolds?"  Peter is still staring up at the sky, maybe picking out the constellations she had shown him.  "I think good things are coming for us."

"Do you?"  She edges herself between him and the bannister, and he kisses her, which makes the light in her wrists glow just enough to be noticeable.

(They had figured out that side affect last night.  Peter thinks its cool, because, as he said, it was a thermometer for how good of a kisser he was.  Nora just thought it was annoying.)

"I can feel it."  He taps at his chest, right above his heart.  "Right here."

"And if you're wrong?"  That's what she's most afraid of, that this feeling might not last.  That there's going to be a day where the ground crumbles from underneath her feet once again.  "What do we do then?"

"We work through it.  All of us.  Together, just like we did everything else."  He was so certain, Nora couldn't help but believe him.

"And for right now?"

"For right now?"  He grins, wickedly, and holds out his hand to her.  "You want to get out of here?"

She can see the watch around his wrist, the one that just holds his webbing instead of telling time. He tells everyone its purely for fashion, and most people believe him.

"They'll notice we're gone."

"Not for a while."  He pulls her close to him, where he can hang onto her and neither of them be afraid of falling.  "Be young and dumb with me, just for a moment."

It sounded like a promise.  A promise of living and loving and never giving up even when it would be easier.  About always being good and brave and true, about how even when they are not so lovely, even when they are bleeding and broken and just want to admit that they had been beaten, they will be there for the other to lean on.

Life isn't so scary, when you have people to walk through it with you.

"Young and dumb."  She took his hand and watches the stars as her feet lifted off the ground, wishing they could just keep flying until they reached them.  "I can do that."

In the end, though, they just stop at the roof, sitting on the edge and swinging their feet in the open air. There's something about being so close to the fall that makes you feel more alive.

"Really, though."  She's tracing the constellations with her fingers, trying to teach him.   "I feel like this won't last."

"It won't."  Peter laced his fingers with hers.  "There's always going to be another bad guy.  But you know something else, Nora?"

"What's that?"  She knew that she loved him.  She knew that she wanted nothing more than to stay on this roof forever.  She knew that she was happy.

"There's always going to be people like us, too."  He squeezed her hand, and as much as this felt like a beginning, part of her couldn't help but focus on the part of her life that would be ending.   "There's always going to be heroes."

 


	51. The End

  **And so we come to the end.**

 **I've been working towards this for so long that I almost can't believe it.  It seems strange to be so proud of a fanfiction,**   **but I am.  I've poured a lot of time and effort into these characters, trying to make them as lifelike and special as I could, and now that it's time to say good-bye, I'm almost a little sad.  I don't want to let go of Nora (or even Eden, Evangeline, and my interpretation of Tony) but all stories must come to a stop, and this is the end of theirs.**

**I hope you've loved it as much as I have.  There's more people reading this than I ever thought would care about a Spider-Man/Iron Man fanfiction, both on this site and others.  You have no idea how happy I am watching the numbers climb, or how excited I get when I log on and see someone has left me a comment.  I love hearing your feedback, and I love it even more when that feedback is good.**

**Now that it's over, I just want to beg for one more thing: please leave me a comment.  It takes a lot of work to write all this, and even though seeing that you read it is great, having proof that you loved it as much as I did (even more, for some of you) is even better.  And thank you, thank you, thank you to those who had commented already, especially The Spiderling.  They've made me so happy.**

**For those who don't want this to end, don't worry.  This isn't my last time writing for the MCU.  If you liked this story, I've got a prologue for it right now through a series called "All the Lovely Ones Have Scars," which you can find on my dashboard.  It follows the story of Tony and Pepper's relationship from the day Pepper gets hired at Stark Industries up to the day they meet Nora.  (There's also writings for other fandoms.  For Harry Potter fans, check out the Audra Stanton series.)**

**And that's it.  If you want to keep in touch, follow my Instagram @olive.writtes.fanfic.  If you want one last chance to see the aesthetic boards I've made and see once and for all how I imagined my characters, follow the links that I'm posting in the next chapter.  But other than that, this is probably good-bye from Nora and I.**

**Until next time, lovelies.**

 

 

(This is also being posted on Wattpad and quotev.  Anything you recognize is not mine and belongs to the MCU.  Thanks for reading.) **  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


	52. Pinterest

Below are the links for the aesthetic boards on my pinterest, which allow you to see how I imagined my characters. They include aesthetics for Nora, Eden, Evangeline, Peter, Pepper, and Tony.  Hope you enjoy.

 

https://www.pinterest.com/always_scritpur/to-all-those-brave-and-lovely-aes/

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


	53. Author Update

**For those of you that enjoyed this story before, I have two updates:**

 

**The first is that I changed my Instagram to something that's a little more on brand, and the username is now @olive.writes.fanfic.  It's an entirely different account from the one I asked you to follow the last time, so if any of you had followed my other account, you'll need to switch over to this one to stay updated.**

 

**The second is that I reorganized my pinterest account, as well as added more aesthetics, so if you want to keep looking at what I think Nora and friends looked like (including a brand new board for Peter), you can follow the link below.**

https://www.pinterest.com/always_scritpur/to-all-those-brave-and-lovely-aes/


End file.
